Cullen Chin
Dr. William Hamilton
The Great Debaters
The Great Debaters
In class over the past week we had to watch the movie The Great Debaters for class time.
The movie incorporated many qualities of that time period where racial tensions were at an all–
time high and African Americans lived in constant fear. Even something as simple as Tolson
trying to arrange a farms union between white and black farmers resulted in many beatings and
harsh treatment to members of the African American community. The students face many
problems including accusations their teacher Melvin Tolson is a communist, trying to compete
against white schools, and seeing a man lynched at the hands at a white mob. They used
challenges like this during the movie to motivate them to use their debate skills to effectively
influence their audience’s perception of the African American community which eventually
leads to them debating against Harvard. In the movie’s final sequences, the debater’s are