Review of The Great Debaters (2007) by Monty H — 17 Dec 2012

Powerful film about the challenges Wiley College, a small Negro college in 1935 Texas, faces as their debate team led by Professor Melvin Tolson (Denzel, who also directed) squares off against other debate teams. Tolson assembles a debate team of four of his brightest students including the smart mouth Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), the only female on the team Samantha (Jurnee Smollett) and the son of a preacher, James Farmer Jr (Dnezel Whitaker). Farmer Sr is played by Forest Whitaker. The debaters face many dangers especially racism. They encounter bigotry and even run into a lynch mob during their travels. Tolson, himself is arrested for trying to bring the local farmers together to stand up for their rights. But things begin to turn around once the team meets and beats their first all white counterparts from Oklahoma State. This sets the stage for a national showdown against powerhouse debate school Harvard. The acting is superb from everyone including the usual solid Washington, who also does a fine directing job, Forest Whitaker as the stern father; Denzel Whitaker as his son, and the lovely and exceptional Jurnee Smollett. Some of the racial scenes may get intense, but it shows what the team had to go through to achieve their goals. A powerful and compelling piece of history that will move and inspire you. One of the best films I have seen.

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James Farmer Jr.: In Texas they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes and, worse, the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog. Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing. No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing. Just left us wondering, "Why?" My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law in no law at all.' Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.