Freedom Writers "Biographical Note"

Richard LaGravenese


Richard LaGravenese was born on October 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American film writer and director. He graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Program. As a student, he sharpens up his skills with dialogue and formed a New York- and Toronto-based comedy troupe, for which he also wrote sketches. After a disastrous turn on the icky 1989-generation gap "comedy" Rude Awakening, starring Cheech Marin and Louise Lasser, LaGravenese supplemented his (unrelated) day job by working on the script for what became The Fisher King (1991) a project reflecting his lifelong fascination with mythology. LaGravenese lost his best friend, Demme, to cocaine overdose. During this time, he took a couple of years off. He used this time to begin the script of Freedom Writers. This screenplay re-examines thematic territory covered previously by Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, in its story of a determined teacher Hilary Swank who vows to teach her tough-as-nails students compassion and tolerance by introducing them to The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. La Gravenese assumed directorial duties as well, and Paramount slated the picture for release in January 2007. Some of his best works include The Fisher King (1991), which he was the screenwriter. He directed a previous movie titled P.S I Love You in 2008. The film’s leading role, played by Hilary Swank, won Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress. The year before LaGravenese directed the film titled, “Freedom Writers”. LaGravenese was nominated and awarded for a list of movies. In 1992, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie, The Fisher King, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In 1998, he received the Gotham Award for Best writer. In 2007, LaGravenese won the Humanitas Award for featured film, Freedom Writers. In 2008, he was nominated for the Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television) for Freedom Writers. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York on Central Park West with his wife, Ann and daughter, Lily.





Richard LaGravenese. 25 April 2009 .
Richard LaGravenese Filmography. 25 April 2009 .

Freedom Writers "Precis" for Articles 1 & 2

Article 1
This article focuses on Sunday, May 14, 1961 – Mother’s Day. This was the day when angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then, some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trail ways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama. The bus passengers assaulted that day were Freedom Riders, among the first of more than 400 volunteers who traveled throughout the South on regularly scheduled buses for seven months in 1961 to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal. The article discusses Eric Etheridge's own experiences with racial segregation and the day of the violent attacks on that day. This article is very much related to the movie, Freedom Writers. In the movie, if race boundary lines are crossed then the people who crossed them must suffer the repercussions which majority of the time can be fatal.



Holmes, Marian Smith. "The Freedom Riders." Smithsonian 39.6 (Feb. 2009): 70. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009




Article 2
In this article, it discusses who were the freedom riders, how they started, and their struggle for justice. It includes a brief narrative from Raymond Arsenault. Freedom Riders were mostly college students and liberal clergy, both black and white. In 1961, they decided to force the United States government to live up to its promise of a desegregated society. Traveling through the Deep South by bus, they suffered injury and death by the Ku Klux Klan, they were jailed and beaten, but refused to give up. Raymond Arsenault's incredible narrative, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, vividly retells the story of these young civil rights pioneers. Even more fascinating is the inside story: Freedom Riders concerned about their place in history; friction between civil rights groups and their leaders; the efforts by the Kennedy administration to protect the riders' rights while at the same time attempting to convince them to give up the campaign; the incompetence of the FBI in bringing known Klan members to justice. The freedom riders were indispensable in moving the federal government to enforce civil rights laws that were so blatantly ignored by many southern states. The clash between southern governors waving the flag of state sovereignty and the U.S. government's obligation to protect the riders and enforce federal law powerfully illustrates the deep-seated cultural, political, and historical issues behind the events. This article is related to the movie, Freedom Writers because their teacher Erin Gruwell defied what administration wanted her students to learn, and she allowed them to take a stand and brought the different races of Room 203 together as one by making a difference.


Frey, Raymond. "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice." Magill Book Reviews (Feb. 2007). MAS Ultra-School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009 .