Trying to set the background of android actionbar version 2.1 or so (API 7) and up

Question

Alright so I've followed android tutorial to try and style my action bar and it doesn't seem to work

themes.xml

<resources>
    <!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
    <style 
        name="CustomActionBarTheme"
        parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
    </style>

    <!-- ActionBar styles -->
    <style 
        name="MyActionBar"
        parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
    </style>
</resources>

manifest.xml

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/CustomActionBarTheme" >

...

I made sure i have actionbar_background.png(which is an square image with a color basically) in the correct folders. however. when i run the up i still see the old action bar like nothing changed.