Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Hi,
One of the JRE versions (1.3.1_09) sets the color of the text in some of my applet components to an ugly purple. So I would like to specify a more readable color. Can you tell me how to set the text color and the background color for a label, for example? Below is a little example of one of my labels.

Thanks for your help.

    JLabel label = new JLabel(text);
    Font font = new Font("Arial",Font.PLAIN,12);
    label.setFont(font);