Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
{{infobox color|textcolor	white| titlePurple| picFile:Color icon purple.svg
symbolism	royalty, imperialism, nobility, Lent, Easter, Mardi Gras, episcopacy, upper class, poison, friendship, engineering, passion, sharing, wisdom, rage, homosexuality, contrition, sympathy, extreme and sophistication
hex	800080
r	128|g0|b128|rgbspacesRGB
C	0|m100|y0|k50
H	300|s100|v50
Source	HTML/CSS }}

Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue. In additive light combinations it occurs by mixing the primary colors red and blue in varying proportions. It is a secondary color because two colors (blue and red) make up this color. In subtractive pigments it can be equal to the primary color magenta or be formed by mixing magenta with the colors red or blue, or by mixing just the latter two, in which case a color of low saturation will result. Low saturation will also be caused by adding a certain quantity of the third primary color (green for light or yellow for pigment). There is a disagreement over exactly which shades can be described as purple, some people preferring more precise terms such as magenta or heliotrope for particular shades. A difference in retinal sensitivity to red and blue light between individuals can cause further disagreement.

In color theory, a "purple" is defined as any non-spectral color between violet and red (excluding violet and red themselves). The spectral colors violet and indigo are not purples according to color theory but they are purples according to common English usage since they are between red and blue.

In art, purple is the color on the color wheel between magenta and violet and its tints and shades. This color, electric purple, is shown below.

In human color psychology, purple is also associated with royalty and nobility (stemming from classical antiquity when Tyrian purple was only affordable to the elites).

Etymology and definitions

The word 'purple' comes from the Old English word ''purpul'' which derives from the Latin ''purpura'', in turn from the Greek (''porphura''), name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.

The first recorded use of the word 'purple' in English was in the year A.D. 975.

Purple versus violet

Violet is a spectral color (approximately 380–420 nm), of a shorter wavelength than blue, while purple is a combination of red and blue or violet light. The purples are colors that are not spectral colors – purples are extra-spectral colors. In fact, purple was not present on Newton's color wheel (which went directly from violet to red), though it is on modern ones, between red and violet. There is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light"; it only exists as a combination.

Pure violet cannot be reproduced by a Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color system, but it can be approximated by mixing blue and red. The resulting color has the same hue but a lower saturation than pure violet.

One interesting psychophysical feature of the two colors that can be used to separate them is their appearance with increase of light intensity. Violet, as light intensity increases, appears to take on a far more blue hue as a result of what is known as the Bezold-Brücke shift. The same increase in blueness is not noted in purples.

Properties

On a chromaticity diagram, the straight line connecting the extreme spectral colors (red and violet) is known as the line of purples (or 'purple boundary'); it represents one limit of human color perception. The color magenta used in the CMYK printing process is near the center of the line of purples, but most people associate the term "purple" with a somewhat bluer tone, such as is displayed by the color "electric purple" (a color also directly on the line of purples), shown below. Some common confusion exists concerning the color names "purple" and "violet". Purple is a mixture of red and blue light, whereas violet is a spectral color.

On the CIE xy chromaticity diagram, violet is on the curved edge in the lower left, while purples are on the straight line connecting the extreme colors red and violet; this line is known as the line of purples, or the purple line.

Historical development

Tyrian purple: Classical antiquity

{{infobox color |textcolor	white| titleTyrian Purple | hex66023C| r102|g2 |b60| c 66|m 87|y 0|k 0| h329|s 98|v 40| spellingcolor| sourceInternet}}

The actual color of Tyrian purple, the original color purple from which the name purple is derived, is the color of a dye extracted from a mollusc found on the shores of the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia (present day Lebanon) that in classical antiquity became a symbol of royalty because only the very wealthy could afford it. Therefore, Tyrian purple was also called imperial purple.

Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as the time of the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the Emperor of the Macedonian Empire), the emperor of the Seleucid Empire, and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt all wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on their white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.

Han purple: Ancient China

{{infobox color|title	Han Purple|textcolorwhite| hex5218FA| r 82|g 24|b250| c |m |y |k | h 260|s 97|v 47
Source	Internet}}

Han purple is a type of artificial pigment found in China between 500 BC and AD 220. It was used in the decoration of the Terracotta Army.

Royal purple: Medieval Europe

{{infobox color |textcolor	white| titleRoyal Purple | hex7851A9| r120|g 81|b169| c 29|m 52|y 0|k 34| h267|s52|v66
Source	Crayola}}

This shade of purple is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple.

In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, so only the most wealthy or the aristocracy could afford to wear them. (The working class wore mainly green and brown.) Because of this (and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476), Europeans' idea of purple shifted towards this more bluish purple known as royal purple because of its similarity to the royal blue worn by the aristocracy. This was the shade of purple worn by kings in medieval Europe.

Artists' pigment purple (red-violet): 1930s

{{infobox color| textcolor	white| titleRed-Violet| hexC71585| r199|g 21|b 133| c 0|m 89|y 33|k 0| h322|s 89|v 78
Source	X11}}

'Royal purple' (shown above) or the dark violet color known as ''generic purple'' is the common layman's idea of purple, but professional artists, following Munsell color system (introduced in 1905 and widely accepted by 1930), regard purple as being synonymous with the red-violet color shown at right, represented by the web color medium violet red, in order to clearly distinguish purple from violet and thus have access to a larger palette of colors. This red-violet color, called artist's purple by artists, is the pigment color that would be on a pigment color color wheel between pigment violet and pigment (process) magenta. In the Munsell color system, this color at its maximum chroma of 12 is called Red-Purple, or more specifically Munsell 5RP.

Artists' pigments and colored pencils labeled as purple are typically colored the red-violet color shown at right.

Electric purple: 2000s

{{infobox color|textcolor	white| titleElectric Purple| hexBF00FF| r191|g 0|b255| c 25|m100|y 0|k 0| h285|s100|v100 |sourceColour Lovers}}

This color, electric purple, is precisely halfway between violet and magenta and thus fits the artistic definition of purple.

Using additive colors such as those on computer screens, it is possible to create a much brighter purple than with pigments where the mixing subtracts frequencies from the component primary colors. The equivalent color on a computer to the pigment color red-violet shown above would be this electric purple, i.e. the much brighter purple you can see reproduced on the screen of a computer. This color is pure purple conceived as computer artists conceive it, as the pure chroma on the computer screen color wheel halfway between color wheel violet and electric magenta. Thus, electric purple is the purest and brightest purple that it is possible to display on a computer screen.

An old name for this color, used by Robert Ridgway in his 1912 book on color nomenclature, ''Color Standards and Color Nomenclature'', is true purple.

Computer web color purples

Purple (HTML/CSS color) (patriarch)

{{infobox color |textcolor	white| titlePurple (HTML/CSS color) | hex800080| r128|g0 |b128|rgbspacesRGB| c 66|m 87|y 0|k 0| h300|s 100|v 50.2| sourceHTML/CSS }}

This purple used in HTML and CSS actually is deeper and has a more reddish hue (#800080) than the X11 color purple shown below as ''purple'' (X11 color) (#A020F0), which is bluer and brighter.

This color may be called HTML/CSS purple. It seems likely that this color was chosen as the web color purple because its hue is exactly halfway between red and blue and its value is exactly halfway between white and black.

A traditional name sometimes used for this tone of purple is patriarch. The first recorded use of ''patriarch'' as a color name in English was in 1925.

Purple (X11 color) (veronica)

{{infobox color|textcolor	white| titlePurple (X11 color)| hexA020F0| r160|g 32|b240| c 9|m 94|y 0|k 0| h276.92|s 86.67|v 94.12
Source	X11}}

At right is displayed the color purple, as defined in the X11 color, which is a lot brighter and bluer than the HTML purple shown above.

See the chart Color names that clash between X11 and HTML/CSS in the X11 color names article to see those colors which are different in HTML and X11.

This color can be called X11 purple.

The traditional name for this tone of purple is veronica. The first recorded use of ''veronica'' as a color name in English was in 1919.

Medium purple (X11)

{{infobox color| title	Medium Purple|textcolorwhite| hex 9370DB| r147|g112|b219| c 56|m 58|y 0|k 0| h270|s 68|v72
Source	X11}}

Displayed at right is the web color medium purple.

This color is a medium shade of the bright ''X11 purple'' shown above.

Additional definition of purple

Purple (Munsell)

The color defined as purple in the Munsell color system (Munsell 5P) is shown at right. The ''Munsell color system'' is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), spaced uniformly in three dimensions in the elongated oval at an angle shaped Munsell color solid according to the logarithmic scale which governs human perception. In order for all the colors to be spaced uniformly, it was found necessary to use a color wheel with five primary colors—red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

The Munsell colors displayed are only approximate as they have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut.

Additional variations

Orchid

{{infobox color| title	Orchid| hex DA70D6| r218|g112|b214| c 0|m 49|y 2|k 15| h302|s 49|v 85 |sourceX11}}

The color orchid is a light tone of purple. The name 'orchid' originates from the flowers of some species of the vast orchid flower family, such as ''Laelia furfuracea'' and ''Ascocentrum pusillum'', which have petals of this color.

The first recorded use of ''orchid'' as a color name in English was in 1915.

Heliotrope

{{infobox color|title	Heliotrope|hexDF73FF| r223|g 115|b255| c 13|m 55|y 0|k 0| h286|s 55|v 100 }}

The color heliotrope is a brilliant tone of purple.

Heliotrope is a pink-purple tint that is a representation of the color of the heliotrope flower.

The first recorded use of ''heliotrope'' as a color name in English was in 1882.

Psychedelic purple (phlox)

{{infobox color|textcolor	white| titlePsychedelic Purple| hexDF00FF| r223|g 0|b255| c 13|m100|y 0|k 0| h292|s100|v100 |sourceColour Lovers}}

The pure essence of purple was approximated in pigment in the late 1960s by mixing fluorescent magenta and fluorescent blue pigments together to make ''fluorescent purple'' to use in psychedelic black light paintings. This tone of purple was very popular among hippies and was the favorite color of Jimi Hendrix. Thus it is called psychedelic purple. Psychedelic purple is the color halfway between electric purple and magenta.

In the 1980s there was a ''Jimi Hendrix Museum'' in a Victorian house on the east side of Central Ave. one half block south of Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco which was painted this color.

Another name for this color is phlox, as it is the color of the phlox flower. The first recorded use of ''phlox'' as a color name in English was in 1918.

Mulberry

{{infobox color |textcolor	white| titleMulberry| hexC54B8C| r197|g 75|b140| c |m |y 0|k 0| h285|s 67|v 70| |sourceCrayola}}

The color mulberry is displayed at right. This color is a representation of the color of mulberry jam or pie. This was a Crayola crayon color from 1958 to 2003.

The first recorded use of ''mulberry'' as a color name in English was in 1776.

Pansy purple

{{infobox color|textcolor	white| titlePansy Purple| hex78184A| r120|g 24|b 74| c |m |y 0|k | h287|s 36|v 27 |sourceISCC-NBS}}

The pansy flower has varieties that exhibit three different colors: ''pansy'' (a color between indigo and violet), ''pansy pink'', and pansy purple.

The first recorded use of ''pansy purple'' as a color name in English was in 1814.

In nature

Bacteria

Purple bacteria are proteobacteria that are phototrophic, that is, capable of producing energy through photosynthesis.

Plants

Purple needlegrass is the state grass of California.

Eggplant, aubergine is a plant of the family Solanaceae and genus Solanum. Eggplant, aubergine

Animals

The purple frog is a species of amphibian discovered in India in 2003.

Purple Honeycreeper

In culture

Academic dress

In the French academic dress system, the five traditional fields of study (Arts, Science, Medicine, Law and Divinity) are each symbolized by a distinctive color, which appears in the academic dress of the people who graduated in this field. Purple (usually a hue close to Royal Purple) is the distinctive color for Divinity. It is also worn by high academic officials (University President, Head of Faculty, Rector, etc.) regardless of the field in which they graduated.

Anti-apartheid movement

The Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in Cape Town, South Africa on September 2, 1989, in which a police water cannon with purple dye sprayed thousands of demonstrators. This led to the slogan ''The purple shall govern''.

Astronomy

One of the stars in the Pleiades, called Pleione, is sometimes called ''Purple Pleione'' because, being a fast spinning star, it has a purple hue caused by its blue-white color being obscured by a spinning ring of electrically excited red hydrogen gas.

Billiard games

Purple is the color of the ball in Snooker Plus with a 10-point value.

In the game of pool, purple is the color of the 4-solid and the 12-striped balls.

Computing

The Firefox webtheme and a purple carnival mask to indicate private browsing mode.

Purple Numbers is a convention that allows linking directly to individual paragraphs in HTML documents.

Calendars

Purple is associated with Saturday on the Thai solar calendar. Anyone may wear purple on Saturdays and anyone born on a Saturday may adopt purple as their color.

Comedy

The Purple Onion is a celebrated comedy club in the North Beach area of San Francisco, California.

Cultural associations

In parts of East Asian countries such as Japan, purple is known as the color of death.

Gaming

In Role-playing games such as Pokémon and Final Fantasy, purple is often used to depict psychic energy or dark magic. In Kingdom Hearts, purple is often mixed with black to depict darkness.

In MMORPG games such as World Of Warcraft, purple means an Item of high value.

Geography

Purple Mountain is located on the eastern side of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China. Its peaks are often found enveloped in mysterious purple clouds at dawn and dusk, hence comes its name "Purple Mountain". The Purple Mountain Observatory is located there.

Heraldry

Porpora, or purpure, was not one of the usual tinctures in European heraldry, being added at a late date to bring the number of colors plus metals to seven, so that they could be given planetary associations. The classic early example of purpure is in the coat of arms of the Kingdom of León: argent, a lion purpure, as early as 1245.

History

Byzantine empresses gave birth in the Purple Chamber of the palace of the Byzantine Emperors. Therefore, being named Porphyrogenitus ("born to the purple") marked a dynastic emperor as opposed to a general who won the throne by his effort.

In China, the Chinese name of the Forbidden City literally means "purple forbidden city" 紫禁城 with first character 紫 meaning purple (even though the Chinese Emperor himself wore yellow, which was considered in China to be the imperial color).

Holocaust

The purple triangle was a Nazi concentration camp badge used by the Nazis to identify several un-orthodox non-conformist religious groups known as Bibelforscher, mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Literature

Alice Walker, author of ''The Color Purple,'' said, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."

As a result of its association with royalty and luxury, the term ''purple'' is often used to describe pretentious or overly embellished literature. For example, a paragraph containing an excessive number of long and unusual words is called a purple passage (see Purple prose).

Purple and violet are frequently mentioned in the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator's curtains are described as being purple and the cushions are described as having "velvet violet lining."

Microbiology

In April 2007 it was suggested that early archaea may have used retinal, a purple pigment, instead of chlorophyll, to extract energy from the sun. If so, large areas of the ocean and shoreline would have been colored purple; this is called the Purple Earth hypothesis.

Military

In the US and United Kingdom militaries, ''purple'' refers to programs or assignments that are "joint", i. e., that are not confined to a single service such as the army or navy, but apply to the entire defense establishment. In the Canadian Forces they are known as purple trades. Assignment to one or more joint billets is required for promotion to flag rank (Rear Admiral and higher) in the U.S. Navy. Officers in joint billets are sometimes referred to as "wearing purple" (the phrase is purely metaphorical as there are no purple uniforms in the U.S. armed forces, UK armed forces or Canadian Forces.)

During and before World War II, the Japanese used a code known as PURPLE or the Purple Code. The Allies' military successes in the Pacific theater depended on the fact that the Japanese did not know that Allied cryptographers had broken the code.

The Purple Heart is a US military decoration awarded in the name of the President of the USA to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military.

Mourning

In 16th century England, purple was the color for the final stage of mourning, according to Mark Twain in his first attempt at historical fiction, "The Prince and the Pauper".

More recently especially during Victorian times and even to some extent today, for the first year following a death ('deep mourning') black is worn by close relatives and this is gradually replaced by other dark colors (during 'half mourning'or 'Secondary Mourning'), often by purple or dark green trimmed with black Oxford University Museum – Funeral Clothing

Music

Deep Purple is a popular rock band.

"Deep Purple" (song) is also the name of a popular song that was the favorite of Babe Ruth.

"Hail to purple" is a line in the Northwestern University alma mater.

Purple are a British tribute band to Deep Purple.

The Mulberry Purple is a popular modern rock band.

"Purple People Eater" was one of the biggest rock and roll hits of 1958.

"Purple Haze" is one of the most popular songs by Jimi Hendrix.

"Tha Purple" is a song performed by the duo Pablo and Victor.

Purple is the favorite color of the pop celebrity Prince. His 1984 film and album ''Purple Rain'' is one of his best known works. The title track is Prince's signature song and is nearly always played in concert to this day. Prince encourages his fans to wear purple to his concerts.

"Start Wearing Purple" is a song by Gogol Bordello.

Purple Ribbon Records is a hip-hop record label owned by rapper Big Boi of the rap duo Outkast. 2005 saw the release of the mixtape ''Got Purp? Vol 2'' featuring the Purple Ribbon All-Stars and other artists on the label. In this case, purple refers to a particular quality of marijuana.

''Purple'' is a 1994 album by the band Stone Temple Pilots.

''Purple'' is also the name of a track by rap artist Nas.

''Purple Music, Inc'' is a company in Switzerland that produces house music.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage is an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco in 1969, and its original lineup included members of the Grateful Dead.

"The Purple Bottle" is a song by Animal Collective.

''Purple Line'' is a song by Korean band, TVXQ.

Purple Rain is Prince's iconic signature song, featured in his Purple Rain album, which was the soundtrack for the Purple Rain film, starred by him.

Parapsychology

People with purple auras are said to have a love of ritual and ceremony.

People

There is a woman named Barbara Meislin in Tiburon, California who is called ''The Purple Lady''.

Singer Prince is often referred to as 'The Purple One', or 'His Royal Purpleness' by fans and the media alike. He starred in a film called Purple Rain and released a single entitled Purple Rain from his Purple Rain album, one of the best selling albums of all time. There are also various references to the color purple in Prince songs and media.

Phobias

Porphyrophobia is fear of the color purple.

Politics

In Italy, since the global demonstration of 5th December 2009, purple has been used by a large civic movement protesting against Berlusconi's government, accused to be a media-dictatorship heavily connected with the Mafia. This color was chosen as a non-partisan emblem because it isn't associated with any current Italian party symbol. The movement, operating mainly through the web, thus defines itself Popolo Viola (Purple People).

In British politics, purple is used to represent the United Kingdom Independence Party, a right-wing Eurosceptic party.

In the politics of the Netherlands, Purple () means a coalition government consisting of liberals and social democrats (symbolized by the colors blue and red, respectively), as opposed to the more common coalitions of the Christian Democrats with one of the other two. Between 1994 and 2002 there were two Purple cabinets, both lead by Prime Minister Wim Kok.

In the Politics of Belgium, as with the Netherlands, a purple government includes liberal and social-democratic parties in coalition. Belgium was governed by Purple governments from 1999 to 2007 under the leadership of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

In United States politics, a ''purple state'' is a state equally balanced between Republicans (currently symbolized by red) and Democrats (currently symbolised as blue).

Religious text

In the Byzantine Empire, Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment that was colored Tyrian purple.

Rhyme

Few, if any words used in modern English rhyme with the word "purple."

Robert Burns rhymes purple with "curple" in his Epistle to Mrs. Scott. Burns is, as far as we can tell, the only writer to have used the word. A curple refers to 1) the small of the waist before the flare of the hips 2) a derrière, rump or behind or 3) the part of a saddle that passes under the rear end of the horse – often called a "crapper".

The Scottish word hurple meaning an impediment similar to a limp also rhymes with purple.

Roger Miller's 1964 hit "Dang Me" rhymes purple with "surple" in humorous reference to maple syrup.

Science fiction

In the Star Trek universe, Klingons have purple blood.

In Star Wars the character Mace Windu is the only character with a purple lightsaber.

Purple is a color commonly used by Decepticons and Predacons in various Transformers media.

Sexuality

In early October 2010, Canadian teenager Brittany McMillan promulgated the observance of a new commemoration called ''Spirit Day'', the first observance of which took place on October 20, 2010, in which people wear the color purple to show support for LGBT young people who are victims of bullying. Many Hollywood celebrities wore purple on this day to show their support of this cause. At the 24 June 2007 San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, Yahoo passed out 3 7/16" in diameter round plastic stickers with a picture of a gay man or woman imaged as one of the Yahoo Gay Pride avatars against an HTML/CSS Purple background that said ''Out, Proud, and Purple''. In the mid 1970s, there was a gay piano bar at 2223 Market St. between Noe and Castro in San Francisco called the ''Purple Pickle''.

The purple hand is an LGBT symbol that derives from an incident which occurred on Halloween night (31 October), 1969, when sixty members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) staged a protest at the ''San Francisco Examiner'' in response to a series of news articles disparaging LGBT people in San Francisco's gay bars and clubs.

Sports

The National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings use purple as their primary color, though the Lakers formerly used the term "Forum Blue", in reference to their old arena The Forum.

In Indian Premier League, purple is the primary color of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings use purple as one of their primary colors.

In Major League Baseball, purple is one of the primary colors for the Colorado Rockies.

In the National Football League, the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens use purple as main colors.

The Australian Football League's Fremantle Football Club use purple as one of their primary colors.

In Association football (soccer) Belgian Eerste Klasse club and former Europa League winner RSC Anderlecht, Italian Serie A club Fiorentina and Australian A-League Club Perth Glory use purple as one of their primary colors.

Melbourne Storm from Australia's National Rugby League use purple as one of their primary colors.

In the NCAA, the Kansas State Wildcats, TCU Horned Frogs, Niagara University Purple Eagles and Northwestern Wildcats feature purple as their primary team color. The Northwestern student body voted in 1972 to change the team name to "Purple Haze." The University of Washington Huskies, Alcorn State University Braves, LSU Tigers and James Madison Dukes primary team colors are purple and gold. Royal Purple is also one of the official colors of East Carolina University. Also in the world of college football, purple is the primary team color on the University of Evansville Purple Aces.

Costa Rica's Primera División soccer team Deportivo Saprissa's main color is purple, and their nickname is the "Monstruo Morado", or "Purple Monster".

In tennis, the official colors of the Wimbledon championships are deep green and purple (traditionally called mauve).

Transpersonal psychology

In 1976, a chart by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson called ''The Periodic Table of Energy'' outlining the philosophy of Dr. Timothy Leary (The Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness) was given out by the ''Starflight Network'', a group in Berkeley, California that was founded by Robert Anton Wilson to promulgate Dr. Timothy Leary's philosophy. The Eighth or ''Psycho-Atomic'' Circuit was represented on the chart by the color ''psychedelic purple''.

Transportation planning

The MBTA Commuter Rail in Boston is designated with purple markings, and thus is sometimes called the Purple Line.

The LACMTA Purple Line is a subway that goes down part of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles that it has been proposed be extended all the way down Wilshire Boulevard to the Pacific Ocean.

The Chicago Transit Authority's "L" line from Linden Street in Wilmette to Howard Street or the Loop (depending on time of day) is known as the Purple Line.

The Flushing Local/Express (often called the 7 train) of the New York City Subway is designated by a purple circle behind the train number. It is the only numbered train in the New York City subway system that does not share its color with any other train line.

San Francisco’s light rail service, the Muni Metro, designates the L Taraval light rail line, which travels to the Parkside neighborhood, with a solid purple disc on which is inscribed the train letter in white.

The Tokyo Metro Hanzōmon Line is color-coded purple on maps, signage and rolling stock.

The Purple Line, previously designated as the Bi-County Transitway, is a proposed 16-mile (25 km) transit line to link the Red, Green and Orange lines of the Washington Metro transportation system, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The Philippine Light Rail Transit system in Metro Manila designate Line 2 as the Purple Line. Line 2 runs from Santolan in Pasig-Marikina area up to Recto in Manila. Other light transit systems in Metro were designated as the Blue Line (MRT-3, running along EDSA) and Yellow Line (running from Baclaran to Roosevelt Ave.).

Vexillology

While in the rest of the world, red represents communism or socialism and purple (or white; yellow in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand) represents monarchism, in Spain it is just the opposite—red represents monarchism and purple represents the common people. This is why the lowest of the three color bands of the flag of the Second Spanish Republic was purple.

See also

List of colors

Purpure

Violet (color)

References

Further reading

"The perception of color", from Schiffman, H.R. (1990) ''Sensation and perception: An integrated approach'' (3rd edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

External links

Category:Shades of violet Category:Greek loanwords

ar:أرجواني arc:ܐܪܓܘܢܐ be:Пурпурны колер bo:སྨུག་པོའི། bg:Пурпур (цвят) ca:Porpra pdc:Purple da:Lilla de:Purpur (Farbe) el:Μωβ es:Púrpura eu:Gorrindol fr:Pourpre ko:자주 hi:पर्पल ig:Odòdo id:Ungu it:Porpora he:סגול jv:Wungu kn:ಕೆನ್ನೇರಳೆ lbe:Банавшасса la:Purpureus ms:Ungu nl:Purper (kleur) ja:紫 ce:Лилула-сийна pnb:جامنی pl:Barwa purpurowa pt:Púrpura (cor) qu:Kulli ru:Пурпурный цвет scn:Pùrpura simple:Purple sr:Љубичаста боја fi:Purppura sv:Purpur th:สีม่วง tr:Mor uk:Пурпурний колір ur:بنفشی ug:بىنەپشە رەڭ vi:Tía zh-yue:紫 zh:紫色

Táta Vega (born Carmen Rosa Vega, October 7, 1951, Queens, New York) is an American vocalist whose career spans theater, film, and a variety of musical genres.

Career

Vega began her professional singing career in 1963. In California (1969–70) she was cast in the Los Angeles production of the Broadway musical, ''Hair''. From there went on to join the group Pollution, led by Dobie Gray (who also appeared in the L.A. Cast of ''Hair''), and then became a member of the group Earthquire, which released an album in 1973 on Motown's Natural Resources label.

With Motown Records, Vega released four solo albums on the Tamla label: ''Full Speed Ahead'' (1976), ''Totally Táta'' (1977), ''Try My Love'' (1978) and ''Givin' All My Love'' (1981). These albums featured a diverse range of genres, including classic Motown soul, country or southern soul, disco, jazz, funk, country, Latin, doo-wop, and gospel.

She has had an active career as a Lead backing vocalist, working with Stevie Wonder, Andraé Crouch, Lou Rawls, Rare Earth, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles and Madonna. She is featured on the 2010 Elton John and Leon Russell CD ''The Union''. She also worked in film, performing the voice of Shug Avery in ''The Color Purple''; she is featured on four songs on the 1986 soundtrack album, one of which, "Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)", was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Song category.

In 1985 Vega was nominated for Best Soul female Gospel Performance at the 27th annual Grammy Awards For her vocals on "Oh,It is Jesus" written by Andrae Crouch.In which she also performed "Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)" from the motion picture ''The Color Purple''. Other nominees included:Shirley Caesar, Kristle Edwards, Albertina Walker,and Danniebelle Hall.

In 1994, she recorded the Two Spanish versions of "The Circle Of Life" (''El ciclo sin fin'') for the Latin American dubbing of Disney's The Lion King.

In 1998, she signed with Quincy Jones’s Qwest Records and released a gospel album, ''Now I See''.

In 2006 Vega signed with Do Rite Records,in which she released a new Gospel album "This Joy" on October 27, 2009.

Personal life

Vega has two daughters, the eldest born in 1968 and Chloe Lane (born February, 1990 in Berkeley, California) who is a Los Angeles photographer.

Discography

References

External links

All Music Guide

Facebook

Soulwalking - Tata Vega Page

Tata Vega official website

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:American Christians Category:American female singers Category:American musicians Category:American Pentecostals Category:American soul musicians Category:Members of the Church of God in Christ Category:Motown artists Category:People from Queens

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Alice Walker
birth date	February 09, 1944
birth place	Eatonton, Georgia, USA
occupation	Novelist, short story writer, poet, political activist
genre	African American literature
notableworks	''The Color Purple''
awards
influences	Howard Zinn, Zora Neale Hurston
influenced	Gayl Jones
website	http://www.alicewalkersgarden.com }}

Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an African American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best-known for the critically acclaimed novel ''The Color Purple'' (1982) for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Early life

Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia, the youngest of eight children, to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. Her father, who was, in her words, "wonderful at math but a terrible farmer," earned only $300 a year from sharecropping and dairy farming. Her mother supplemented the family income by working as a maid. She worked 11 hours a day for USD $17 per week to help pay for Alice to attend college.

Living under Jim Crow Laws, Walker's parents resisted landlords who expected the children of black sharecroppers to work the fields at a young age. A white plantation owner said to her that black people had “no need for education.” Minnie Lou Walker said, "You might ''have'' some black children somewhere, but they don’t live in this house. Don’t you ever come around here again talking about how ''my children'' don’t need to learn how to read and write.” Her mother enrolled Alice in first grade at the age of four.

Growing up with an oral tradition, listening to stories from her grandfather (the model for the character of Mr. in ''The Color Purple''), Walker began writing, very privately, when she was eight years old. "With my family, I had to hide things," she said. "And I had to keep a lot in my mind."

In 1952, Walker was accidentally wounded in the right eye by a shot from a BB gun fired by one of her brothers. Because the family had no car, the Walkers could not take their daughter to a hospital for immediate treatment. By the time they reached a doctor a week later, she had become permanently blind in that eye. When a layer of scar tissue formed over her wounded eye, Alice became self-conscious and painfully shy. Stared at and sometimes taunted, she felt like an outcast and turned for solace to reading and to writing poetry. When she was 14, the scar tissue was removed. She later became valedictorian and was voted most-popular girl, as well as queen of her senior class, but she realized that her traumatic injury had some value: it allowed her to begin "really to see people and things, really to notice relationships and to learn to be patient enough to care about how they turned out".

After high school, Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship in 1961 and later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College near New York City, graduating in 1965. Walker became interested in the U.S. civil rights movement in part due to the influence of activist Howard Zinn, who was one of her professors at Spelman College. Continuing the activism that she participated in during her college years, Walker returned to the South where she became involved with voter registration drives, campaigns for welfare rights, and children's programs in Mississippi.

Activism

Alice Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. when she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta in the early 1960s. Walker credits King for her decision to return to the American South as an activist for the Civil Rights Movement. She marched with hundreds of thousands in August in the 1963 March on Washington. As a young adult, she volunteered to register black voters in Georgia and Mississippi.

On March 8, 2003, International Women's Day, on the eve of the Iraq War, Alice Walker, Maxine Hong Kingston, author of ''The Woman Warrior''; and Terry Tempest Williams, author of ''An Unspoken Hunger''; were arrested along with 24 others for crossing a police line during an anti-war protest rally outside the White House. Walker and 5,000 activists associated with the organizations Code Pink and Women for Peace, marched from Malcolm X Park in Washington D.C. to the White House. The activists encircled the White House. In an interview with Democracy Now, Walker said, "I was with other women who believe that the women and children of Iraq are just as dear as the women and children in our families, and that, in fact, we are one family. And so it would have felt to me that we were going over to actually bomb ourselves." Walker wrote about the experience in her essay, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For."

In November 2008, Alice Walker wrote "An Open Letter to Barack Obama" that was published on Theroot.com. Walker addresses the newly elected President as "Brother Obama" and writes "Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina, and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about."

In January 2009, she was one of over 50 signers of a letter protesting the Toronto Film Festival's "City to City" spotlight on Israeli filmmakers, condemning Israel as an "apartheid regime."

In March 2009, Alice Walker traveled to Gaza along with a group of 60 other female activists from the anti-war group Code Pink, in response to the Gaza War. Their purpose was to deliver aid, to meet with NGOs and residents, and to persuade Israel and Egypt to open their borders into Gaza. She planned to visit Gaza again in December 2009 to participate in the Gaza Freedom March. On Jun 23, 2011, she announced plans to participate in an upcoming aid flotilla to Gaza which is attempting to break Israel's naval blockade. Explaining her reasons she cited concern for the children and that she felt that "elders" should bring "whatever understanding and wisdom we might have gained in our fairly long lifetimes, witnessing and being a part of struggles against oppression". Fellow author Howard Jacobson took Walker to task saying that her concern for the children does not justify the flotilla.

In a June 2011 interview, Walker described the United States and Israel as "terrorist organizations" stating "When you terrorize people, when you make them so afraid of you that they are just mentally and psychologically wounded for life -- that's terrorism."

Personal life

In 1965, Walker met Melvyn Roseman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer. They were married on March 17, 1967 in New York City. Later that year the couple relocated to Jackson, Mississippi, becoming "the first legally married inter-racial couple in Mississippi". They were harassed and threatened by whites, including the Ku Klux Klan. The couple had a daughter Rebecca in 1969. Walker described her in 2008 as "a living, breathing, mixed-race embodiment of the new America that they were trying to forge." Walker and her husband divorced amicably in 1976.

Walker and her daughter became estranged. Rebecca felt herself to be more of "a political symbol... than a cherished daughter". She published a memoir entitled ''Black White and Jewish'', expressing the complexities of her parents' relationship and her childhood. Rebecca recalls her teenage years when her mother would retreat to her far-off writing studio while “I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.” Since the birth of Rebecca’s son Tenzin, her mother has not spoken to her because she dared to “question her ideology.” Rebecca has learned that she was cut out of her mother’s will in favor of a distant cousin.

In the mid-1990s, Walker was involved in a romance with singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman.

In 2011 shooting began on Beauty in Truth, a documentary film about Walker's life directed by Pratibha Parmar.

Writing career

Walker's first book of poetry was written while she was a senior at Sarah Lawrence. She took a brief sabbatical from writing while working in Mississippi in the civil rights movement. Walker resumed her writing career when she joined ''Ms.'' magazine as an editor before moving to northern California in the late 1970s. Her 1975 article helped revive interest in the work of Zora Neale Hurston, who inspired Walker's writing and subject matter. In 1973, Walker and fellow Hurston scholar Charlotte D. Hunt discovered Hurston's unmarked grave in Ft. Pierce, Florida. The women collaborated to buy a modest headstone for the gravesite.

In addition to her collected short stories and poetry, Walker's first novel, ''The Third Life of Grange Copeland'', was published in 1970. In 1976, Walker's second novel, ''Meridian'', was published. The novel dealt with activist workers in the South during the civil rights movement, and closely paralleled some of Walker's own experiences.

In 1982, Walker published what has become her best-known work, the novel ''The Color Purple''. About a young troubled black woman fighting her way through not only racist white culture but also patriarchal black culture, it was a resounding commercial success. The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaimed 1985 movie as well as a 2005 Broadway musical.

Walker has written several other novels, including ''The Temple of My Familiar'' and ''Possessing the Secret of Joy'' (which featured several characters and descendants of characters from ''The Color Purple''). She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published work. She expresses the struggles of black people, particularly women, and their lives in a racist, sexist, and violent society. Her writings also focus on the role of women of color in culture and history. Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political community for her support of unconventional and unpopular views as a matter of principle.

Her short stories include the 1973 ''Everyday Use'', in which she discusses feminism, racism and the issues raised by young black people who leave home and lose respect for their parents' culture.

In 2007, Walker gave her papers, 122 boxes of manuscripts and archive material, to Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. In addition to drafts of novels such as ''The Color Purple'', unpublished poems and manuscripts, and correspondence with editors, the collection includes extensive correspondence with family members, friends and colleagues, an early treatment of the film script for ''The Color Purple'', syllabi from courses she taught, and fan mail. The collection also contains a scrapbook of poetry compiled when Walker was 15, entitled "Poems of a Childhood Poetess".

Selected awards and honors

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Color Purple (1983) (first black woman).

National Book Award (First black woman)

O. Henry Award for "Kindred Spirits" 1985.

Honorary Degree from the California Institute of the Arts (1995)

American Humanist Association named her as "Humanist of the Year" (1997)

The Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts

The Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters

The Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, the Merrill Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship

The Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman's Club of New York

Induction to the California Hall of Fame in The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts (2006)

Selected works

;Novels and short story collections

''The Third Life of Grange Copeland'' (1970)

''In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women'' (1973)

''Meridian'' (1976)

''The Color Purple'' (1982)

''You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories'' (1982)

''To Hell With Dying'' (1988)

''The Temple of My Familiar'' (1989)

''Finding the Green Stone'' (1991)

''Possessing the Secret of Joy'' (1992)

''The Complete Stories'' (1994)

''By The Light of My Father's Smile'' (1998)

''The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart'' (2000)

''Now Is The Time to Open Your Heart'' (2005)

''Devil's My Enemy'' (2008)

''Everyday Use'' (1973) Short stories, essays, interviews

;Poetry collections

''Once'' (1968)

''Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems'' (1973)

''Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning'' (1979)

''Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful'' (1985)

''Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems'' (1991)

''Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth'' (2003)

''A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems And Drawings'' (2003)

''Collected Poems'' (2005)

''Poem at Thirty-Nine''

;Non-fiction

''In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose'' (1983)

''Living by the Word'' (1988)

''Warrior Marks'' (1993)

''The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult'' (1996)

''Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism'' (1997)

''Go Girl!: The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure'' (1997)

''Pema Chodron and Alice Walker in Conversation'' (1999)

''Sent By Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon'' (2001)

''We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For'' (2006)

''Mississippi Winter IV

''Overcoming Speechlessness'' (2010)

Notes

References

|year=2005 |title=Alice Walker: A Life|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=0-393-32826-0}} and |year=1993 |title=Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women|publisher=Diane Books Publishing Company |isbn=0-7881-5581-4}}

External links

Alice Walker's Official Website

Profile at the Poetry Foundation

Profile at Poets.org

Interview on the nature of a writer’s social responsibilities Lannan Foundation (Audio, 15 mins) August 21, 1987

New Georgia Encyclopedia

Interview with Alice Walker by ascent magazine

Shambhala Sun Magazine Interview

Alice Walker's archives at Emory University. Profile, audio files, archive at the James Weldon Johnson Institute, Emory

"Toxic Culture of Globalization", from ''Democracy Now!'' October 27, 2004. "'I am a Renegade, an Outlaw, a Pagan' interview February 13, 2006. "Pacifica Radio at 60" April 15, 2009 "Overcoming Speechlessness" April 13, 2010

Category:1944 births Category:African American novelists Category:Alumni of women's universities and colleges Category:American feminist writers Category:Feminist writers Category:Womanist writers Category:American humanists Category:American novelists Category:American poets Category:Women poets Category:American vegans Category:Bisexual writers Category:Black feminism Category:Womanism Category:LGBT African Americans Category:LGBT feminists Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:LGBT parents Category:O. Henry Award winners Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Category:Spelman College alumni Category:Wellesley College faculty Category:Writers from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Living people *

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