Erin Gruwell
Erin Gruwell is the fiercely passionate educator who was inspired to become a teacher by watching the infamous L.A. rioting sparked by one of the most inexplicable jury verdicts in American history. By the following year, she finds herself teaching English at the racially diverse Woodrow Wilson High School. Upon being floored by the realization that many students are ignorant or misinformed about the history of the Holocaust, she launches a curriculum devoted to teaching tolerance and cultural understanding.
The Freedom Writers
The Freedom Writers are comprised of 150 of Gruwell’s students representing a cross section of diverse backgrounds initially self-segregate according to racial and ethnic similarities. As Gruwell commences her program of teaching tolerance and understanding as part of the whole curriculum package, these superficial differences begin to fade in the wake of realizing they share so many social problems which cut across their biases without prejudice: problems like gangs, violent home lives, discrimination, and a host of everyday teenage problems.
Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic
The teaching concept of having the Freedom Writers maintain a diary as a means of tangibly applying school lessons to their own real world problems derives from the examples of Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic. Both young women kept private diary accounts at moments of intense global struggle and pressure. While Anne Frank is the more famous, of course, her example is mirrored by twelve-year-old Zlata’s account of living in Sarajevo in the middle of the Bosnian War of the 1990’s. Journey entries from those diaries form the basis of the book.
Sharaud
Gruwell meets Sharaud when she is still a student teacher. He is transferred into the class as a discipline case and is known for using his imposing height to intimidate students and teachers alike. A definite problem student who appears well on his way to becoming a mere delinquent stereotype, Sharaud becomes a major character in the story of the Freedom Writers when the tables are turned and he is bullied through a particularly racist caricature. His response reveals a depth of emotional complexity his tough persona has acted to disguise. This demonstration of racial tolerance becomes a motivating agent for Gruwell and eventually has the result of transforming Sharaud from disciplinarian nightmare into a committed representative of Gruwell’s cause.
John Tu
In one of her own diary entries, Gruwell discloses (anonymously) some of the pettier responses to her success mouthed by envious (or possibly just jealous) co-workers. One which particularly rubs her wrong is the characterization of John Tu as her “sugar daddy.” Tu is a Chinese-born technological entrepreneur and self-made millionaire who becomes inspired by Gruwell’s campaign and subsequently the chief financial benefactor of the Freedom Writers program.
