Robert W. Woodruff - Legacy

Legacy

In 1979, Woodruff and his brother George W. Woodruff gave $105 million to Emory University and would eventually give a total of $230 million dollars. Several buildings on the Emory campus are named for him and members of his family. The Robert W. Woodruff Professorships are named for him.

He also gave large sums of money to other area colleges and universities and to Woodward Academy (formerly Georgia Military Academy) in College Park and the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. A boy scout camp in Blairsville, Georgia named the Robert W. Woodruff Scout Reservation, which is run by the Atlanta Area Council, was built following major donations from the Woodruff Foundation and Coca-Cola. Atlanta's largest cultural institution, the Woodruff Arts Center, benefited from his gifts and is named for him, as is Woodruff Park. The Robert W. Woodruff library is located in the Atlanta University Center and services Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University. (Woodruff Dam is not named after him, but rather for Jim Woodruff.)

Mr. Woodruff was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1977.

Woodruff was instrumental in making a success the dinner held in Atlanta honoring The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Ticket sales were lagging until Woodruff signaled his support for the dinner.