The Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell [84]
Since being a “mom” to 150 college-bound kids will be overwhelming, I’ve decided to rally the troops and elicit more help. Since my education classes at National University have become so popular, I was able to create a special college forum in the fall. The seminar will have seventy-five graduate students who will each be paired up with two Freedom Writers. The idea is to have the Freedom Writers be a “case study” for the graduate students, and in exchange, my grad students will help mentor them.
Since the biggest obstacle in their way is money, Don Parris and I created a nonprofit organization called the Tolerance Education Foundation. If anyone decides to donate money to us, they’ll get a tax writeoff and they’ll be helping a kid go to college. Not too shabby!
Diary 99
Dear Diary,
My mother always uses little clichés like, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” If living in the projects is supposed to make me a stronger person, then I would rather be weak. I’ve spent most of my life living in poverty, being afraid to walk out of my front door because of the risk of being shot. My neighborhood has a way of demolishing any hope I have for a brighter future. “I was born poor and I will probably die poor. No one from my neighborhood has ever made a difference and I probably won’t make one either.” This was my mind-set. For so long, society has told me that because of my neighborhood and the color of my skin, I would never amount to anything.
The thought of college terrified me. At times we barely had enough money to pay our rent, I knew that we couldn’t afford college. In addition to that, no one from my neighborhood had ever successfully completed college. If anyone ever did attempt to go to college, it’s because they hoped to get the financial aid money. When they couldn’t, they would drop out. Most people in my neighborhood figured they weren’t smart enough. No one else in the ’hood has graduated from college, why should they be the first to try? This was my mind-set until I met a courageous woman named Cheryl Best.
“Adversity makes warriors of us all.” Cheryl said. “I grew up in the projects and despite what others may have thought of me I never let them bring me down. I’ve witnessed it all, and I didn’t get caught up in the negativity surrounding my neighborhood. If I could make it in the projects I knew that I could make it anywhere.” That was the first time in my life that I had heard someone talk about living in the ’hood in a positive manner and with a smile on their face. I started to think about all of the horrific things I’ve witnessed. Crackheads getting high right in front of me, and drug dealers making more money in one day than a stockbroker makes in one week. I realized that like Cheryl, I too have never wanted to be caught up in the negative lifestyle that surrounded me. For a brief second, Cheryl made me feel as if I was a warrior, destined to make it out of the undeclared war that I call home, the projects.
Not only did Cheryl live in the projects but she also survived an ordeal that is so horrific, it seemed like something invented in a horror movie. Cheryl was kidnapped, raped, driven to a desert, and had acid poured all over her body. She was left to die. Cheryl refused to give up on her life. “As I lay there helpless, my life flashed before me. I realized that I had overcome too many obstacles in my life to just give up and die. I had too much to live for.” I heard her describe the horrible ordeal she went through. The fact that she survived made me speechless. Cheryl got up from the ground even though acid was eating away at her skin. She began to walk toward the sound of moving cars that were on the highway, about one hundred feet away from her. The acid had blinded her and she had to rely on her other senses. Once Cheryl reached the highway, a motorist spotted her and took her to the hospital.
I pictured in my mind what Cheryl went through. I thought that if that had happened to me, I would have given up and asked the Lord to take my life.