Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993 TAG: 9304070233
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: AMY WILSON KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PURPLE RIBBONS SYMBOLIZE FIGHT AGAINST VIOLENCE
Arsenio, we're told, has been wearing one around Tinseltown. But most people in America hadn't seen one until Oscar night, when Denzel Washington stepped on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with a pale purple ribbon neatly pinned near his heart.An Academy Award nominee, Washington was joined in the wearing of the purple by past Oscar nominee Morgan Freeman, composer Quincy Jones and actress Alfre Woodard. Their message: They will no longer tolerate, as normal day-to-day occurrences, the deaths of their young brothers and sisters on America's streets.
They were prompted by actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, who first showed up with one on "Arsenio" in December. She was wearing it, she explained, to remind people of "the young people who died in the crossfire of self-hatred, who died because no one loved them like their gang."
In a March 5 letter, Ralph and Black Entertainment Television president Robert Johnson asked African-American entertainers to wear the ribbon on television, in the mall, at awards shows.
Ralph isn't trying to usurp the impact of the AIDS ribbon, says the actress' publicist. She's a major force behind the minority AIDS project in Los Angeles, is on the National Minority AIDS Council and raises funds for AIDS by annually producing a benefit called "Divas."
For three years, the National Association for the Education of Young Children has been promoting its cause with its purple ribbon. Every April, it annually urges folks to focus on children's issues and to promote high standards of education, especially for the young child, by wearing a little purple reminder.
Jan Watts, of the Michigan association, says a committee chose the color because purple didn't represent any other known cause. Its ribbon, for the record, is dark purple.