So powerful...

[antonyh]

Clip from movie The Great Debaters.

[kara speltz]

I took my grand children to see this very powerful movie and recommend that everyone should see it. Throughout the movie they carry on discussions concerning nonviolence. In addition, this is a very educational movie that will help people comprehend the devastating effects of Jim Crow laws. Next to the film "Remember the Titans," this is the best anti racist movie, I've seen come out of Hollywood.

[antonyh]

There is a great NYT article that discusses the movie:

MARSHALL, Tex. — When the light at University Avenue is green, drivers can pass Wiley College without a glance. There was a time, however, when this small black liberal arts college here caught the attention of a nation: in the 1930s, Wiley’s polished team of debaters amassed a series of victories over white competitors that stunned the Jim Crow South.

The 1935 debate team at Wiley College won the national championship, but the victory was not officially acknowledged.

The college would go on to groom civil rights leaders like James Farmer Jr. and Heman Sweatt, whose lawsuit against the University of Texas Law School in the 1940s helped pave the way for public school integration. Yet Wiley itself, like many black colleges, has struggled for survival ever since, and even reached the brink of collapse. This year, professors and staff members accepted unpaid furloughs. One employee could not share a recent report with trustees because his department could not afford copy paper...

The most renowned member of the debate team was a teenage James Farmer Jr. [the debater above], who would go on to found the Congress of Racial Equality in 1942. He would later use his Wiley-honed skills in debates against Malcolm X, an unflinching orator. “I debated Malcolm X four times and beat him,” Mr. Farmer told an interviewer in 1997. “I’d think, ‘Come off it, Malcolm, you can’t win. You didn’t come up under Tolson.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/ed...l?pagewanted=1

The 1935 debate team at Wiley College won the national championship, but the victory was not officially acknowledged.

[Zerbie]

Wow, I've never heard of any of this before! How did I miss it??? I am fascinated!

[Vanessa White]

I have heard of the movie, but never the real story that went with it. I am also fascinated and excited to learn more about it; and to learn more about nonviolence and oppression in the process.

Thank you for this.

[RedneckDyke]

I went to see The GReat Debaters at the theater. It was a good movie. I have to admit I was skeptical at first. I thought, "A movie about a debate team? If they are anything like the debate team at my high school this movie is going to be a total SNOOZE FEST!"