Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Ellen Brown (left), an official at Total Action Against Poverty, and Sabrina Simpson (middle), with a community services group, walk past Dickie Cotton on Campbell Avenue.

Officers C.E. Curry (foreground) and Chuck Davis watch as a group of about 50 people with the Family Violence Coordinating Council help draw attention to domestic violence and its victims.

More than 50 strong, the group walked down Campbell Avenue under the unifying theme of purple -- T-shirts, ribbons and some with purple shirts pulled over suits and ties.

And people noticed. One woman stood sideways on the edge of the curb to avoid the mass; another sitting on a bench and smoking a cigarette raised her eyebrows as the crowd pushed by.

And that was the point.

Members of the Family Violence Coordinating Council walked the streets of downtown Roanoke from Lee Plaza to Elmwood Park at lunchtime Friday to mark national Domestic Violence Awareness Month. As organizers put it, they did it to walk in the shoes of people who have been emotionally or physically battered at home.

"In just the few minutes that we're going to be here, hundreds of people will be abused domestically," said Ellen Brown, director of families in transition at Total Action Against Poverty.

According to a study published in 2000 by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four women in the United States is physically assaulted or raped by an intimate partner.

During recent years in Roanoke, police calls for domestic violence have decreased from 3,403 in 2005 to 3,197 in 2007, according to police spokeswoman Aisha Johnson.

Yet the members of the family violence council, who provide help to domestic violence victims, said they are getting busier.

The council includes the TAP Women's Resource Center, Legal Aid of Roanoke Valley and the Carilion Forensic Nursing Program.

Brown said she believes it's getting worse, and her sentiment was echoed in a speech by Darlene Young, director of Salvation Army Turning Point, the only secured shelter for women and children in Roanoke.

Perhaps less visible in the sea of purple were some of the recovering victims of domestic violence. Some wore high heels; others wore sneakers. Some worked in business, others in service.

One was Phyllis Routt, a former gas station attendant who dated and lived for a year with a man who would watch her at work and accuse her at home of flirting with customers.

The man would threaten to kill her cat, get drunk and pull her food from the refrigerator and leave it on the kitchen counter so it would spoil, she said. The day she was brought into the Turning Point shelter, he had beat her in the face and restrained her on a couch.

At Turning Point, she said, she has learned there were red flags going up since very early in the relationship.

"They play mind games with you just to keep you with them," said Routt, 47.

The Salvation Army is now helping her look for a job and get a permanent place to live.

On Thursday, she wore a light purple shirt and jeans, and ended her walk in peace eating celery, ranch dressing and a slice of pepperoni pizza.