I was able to figure this out by defining the style in the div on line 14.
Also on lines 19 and 27 I added the style to set the font color.
I then needed to comment these out of my CSS
<aura:component implements="forceCommunity:availableForAllPageTypes,force:appHostable" access="global" >
<aura:attribute name="URL" type="String" default="" />
<aura:attribute name="Title" type="String" default="" />
<aura:attribute name="Image" type="String" default="" />
<aura:attribute name="Description" type="String" default="" />
<aura:attribute name="bgColor" type="String" default="#FFFFFF" />
<aura:attribute name="textColor" type="String" default="#FFFFFF" />
<div class="c-container1" id="main-content">
<lightning:layout multipleRows="true" horizontalAlign="space">
<lightning:layoutItem flexibility="auto" padding="around-small" size="3" class="box-1" >
<div class="card-contains" style="{! 'background-color:' + v.bgColor }">
<a href="{!v.URL}" class="">
<div>
<div class="results__name">
<center>
<div class="headingMain" style="{! 'color:' + v.textColor }">
<h3 class="heading">{!v.Title} </h3><br />
</div>
<div class="results__logo">
<center>
<img class="elemLogo1" src="{!$Resource.KimbleImages + '/eleImg.2/'+v.Image}" />
</center>
</div>
<div class="headingDetailMain" style="{! 'color:' + v.textColor }">
<p class="headingDetail">{!v.Description}</p>
</div>
</center>
</div>
</div>
</a><br/>
</div>
</lightning:layoutItem>
</lightning:layout>
</div>
</aura:component>