ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996                 TAG: 9603180085
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER 

TRYING TO BRIDGE RACIAL DIVIDE

PEOPLE UNITING AGAINST RACISM is a Roanoke group that meets twice a month to fight racism, hatred and violence.

People Uniting Against Racism is "a group that met and forgot to stop," one of its members said Sunday as it celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Thomas Shannon, a professor at Radford University, recalled at the observance at the Jefferson Center that the group first met in the spring of 1991 to plan a workshop on the subject of healing wounds from racism.

Since that time, PUAR has met without stopping, weekly at first and now twice a month at the offices of the Roanoke Tribune, Shannon said.

Claudia Whitworth, publisher of the Tribune, presented the group's first "we all can get along" award to Reid & Russell Florist, although nobody was present to claim it. The business has been run by an inter-racial partnership since 1977, Whitworth said.

The Rev. Kirk A. Ballin, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke, said the organization is a bridge between people in all walks of life. In a diverse population, he said, PUAR is a cell that continues to fight the diseases of racism, hatred and violence. This, he said, is work that everyone should support.

The Rev. Charles Green, minister of the Church of God and president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called on the audience to learn to tolerate everyone. Through tolerance, he said, we will come to accept everyone as a person.

Mayor David Bowers called it fitting that the anniversary fell on St. Patrick's Day.

As St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, the mayor said, we must drive the snakes of prejudice out of America, Roanoke and the world. "We must in Roanoke accept one another in harmony," Bowers said.

Nearly 40 people attended the event, and they were about evenly divided between blacks and whites.

Stowe & Lowe, a Roanoke entertainment duo, passed out a variety of musical instruments to people in the audience, who joined in an impromptu set of songs that closed the birthday celebration. The Baha'i Youth Choir and the Baha'i Chorale also entertained.

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ERIC BRADY/Staff. Leroy Lowe and Hadassah Stowe, known 
          as Stowe & Lowe, performed during the fifth anniversary celebration 
          for People Uniting Against Racism at the Jefferson Center on Sunday.
          color.