The Great Debaters

Friday morning before the July 4th party, we watched "The Great Debaters." This movie was based on a true story of a professor at Wiley College in Texas, back in 1935, who inspired his students to form a debating team that wound up taking on Harvard. Because these young people were African-American, this was big news, and the debate made history.

Denzel Washington played the starring role and directed the film. He came across as an intensely dedicated man, determined to lift his students (and the sharecroppers in the town) out of their second-class citizenship. He assembles a team of four, but one young man quits the team because the professor will not answer him as to whether he is a Communist. The three remaining students go on to rack up victory after victory, but the professor's other agenda, union organizing, lands him in jail. By the time the summons to face off with the Harvard debating team comes, he is forced to let his students go on alone, in order not to be imprisoned for jumping bail.

There's a romance between a young brilliant and angry ne'er-do-well and the only female student on the team, while the youngest member, a fourteen-year-old boy who is most profoundly affected by the discrimination and cruelty of the Jim Crow south, breaks out of his shyness to become one of the best debaters of all.

This was a real feel-good, inspiring movie that made me want to give a standing ovation. For those wishing to inspire present day students to hone their debating skills and make the most of their education, visit GreatDebaters.org for more information.