This was a true story of Professor Melvin B. Tolson, who formed a debate team at a small African -American college (Wiley College) in rural Texas in the 1930's and made his team overcome obstacles to achieve the ultimate goal in spite of the racial barriers that affective them. Denzel Washington not only directs that masterpiece of entertainment but also stars as the professor who teaches his students the tools to succeed. This movie has Oscar written all over it and seeing two of the greatest actors of our time (Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, both Oscar winners) together in one astounding picture that ranks as one of the best of 2007.
What's the meaning of debate? What's the power of words? Certainly, words are not a powerful army; they are sometimes pale in front of the reality. Just like the four black debaters in the movie, they are able to put thoughts and feelings into clear speech. However, when they are facing a gang of mobs brutally burned their compatriot, they can't even dare to look at it but only lie there and do noting. Maybe at that time they are also wondering what the meaning of the success of the debate is.
Everything about the query of the words and debates has been placed in the last wonderful debate – “Civil disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice.” In another word, when facing the injustice, we should choose whether words or weapons. The The most brilliant part is definitely the Mr. James Farmer's last debate and there comes my favorite sentences – “St. Augustine said, 'An unjust law is 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.”
The final result is obvious from the beginning. The Wiley College won the debate historically. However, what surprises me most is the change of the debaters in the following years. Just seven years later, James founded the Congress of Racial Equality and became the greatest man in the civil rights movement before Martin Luther King. Samantha Booke became a famous fighting for the African-American Civil Rights. In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality organized a Freedom Rider Movement to oppose the apartheid on the bus and James and Samantha with White volunteers took the first Freedom Ride to Alabama.
The debate changed their life and then they changed the society somehow. That's the real power of debate. We should form the habit of public speaking and then people learn to reject with tongues but not weapons.
View more about The Great Debaters reviews
