Center Events:
Speaker Series
Erin Gruwell (Urban High School in Long Beach,
CA)
April 16-17, 2001
November 26, 2001
In
1994 Erin Gruwell began teaching English in an urban high school in Long
Beach, California. As a recently certified teacher with no seniority she was
given the freshman classes that no one else wanted to teach. In her second
year at the school she convinced the administration to let her continue with
her freshman classes through the next three years of high school. Together,
Erin and her students used literature and writing to examine the hard
realities of their lives: gangs, inter-racial violence, drugs, family
traumas. They began to see themselves as agents for change and dubbed
themselves the "Freedom Writers" in honor of the civil rights activists "The
Freedom Riders." They accomplished many things including the publication of
The Freedom Writers Diary, a collection of their diary writings which tells
of their lives, thoughts, and hopes with simple honesty and chronicles their
high school odyssey together. Much to their own amazement, all 150 Freedom
Writers also graduated from high school and went on to college. The story of
the Freedom Writers is a testament to the potential of urban youth and to
the power of literature, writing, and community to change people's lives.
