UPDATE: See photo gallery here. Read the flattering AJC feature here.
Booker T. Washington High School‘s Freedom Writers were honored by Atlanta’s oldest law firm, Kilpatrick Stockton, for achieving a 96 percent acceptance rate into college while being offered more than 190 scholarships worth more than $6.4 million. In an announcement today at the Atlanta Event Center at Opera, Kilpatrick Stockton is offering each Freedom Writer who enrolls in a two- or four-year institution a $500 scholarship – a total gift of nearly $40,000.
The Washington program features 80 Freedom Writers and 60 mentors. U.S. Representative John Lewis, former mayor Shirley Franklin and other dignitaries were at the event. In 2006, Kilpatrick Stockton committed to making a difference in the lives of a group of ninth graders at Washington High in a program called the BTW Freedom Writers Mentoring Program — inspired by famed educator Erin Gruwell and her original Freedom Writers, made famous in the 2007 movie starring Hilary Swank and Patrick Dempsey.