Bootstrap navbar - can't change font color

Question

So for some reason I can't change font color of my Bootstrap navbar - it keeps appearing blue. I've tried changing the background color of the navbar but with the same result. It was OK (white) until I set the background color to 'transparent' for the navbar to look the way I wanted it to look, but I thought it won't be a problem to change it later on so I didn't pay attention to it. Thanks for your response.

CSS

.navbar {

position:absolute;
top:25px;
z-index:10;
width:100%;
background-color: transparent;
padding-right: 20px;
font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif;
font-size: 17px; 
color: white;
}

HTML

<div class="bannerContainer">
<nav class="navbar">
  <div class="navbar-header">
  <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse">
    <span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>
    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
  </button>
  <a class="navbar-brand">Brand</a>
</div>    
<div class="navbar-collapse collapse">
  <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li class="dropdown">
      <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">Dropdown<b class="caret"></b></a>
      <ul class="dropdown-menu">
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
          </ul>
        </li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
  </ul>
</div><!--/.nav-collapse -->
</nav>

Answer 1

That's because this rule :

a {
    color: #428bca;
    text-decoration: none;
}

To override it, use this CSS :

.navbar a {
    color: white;
}