Movie Critical Review : The Great Debaters
Starred and directed by Denzel Washington, The Great Debaters is a drama movie set in southern America, Texas in 1935 during The Great Depression. Despite some alteration in setting and characters, this movie is based on a true story written in an article about a historically black Wiley College debate team by Tony Scherman for the 1997 Spring issue of American Legacy. The plot revolves around Melvin B. Tolson, a debate coach for Wiley College Forensic Society in the 1930s who were also a lecturer and a renowned poet, in his effort to help advancing his debate team so that his team can be equal with whites in the American South. His team consisted of James Farmer Jr. (a fourteen years old who would later in real life co-founded Congress of Racial Equality and become one of the civil right movement leader in US), Henry Lowe (a rebellious yet intelligent young man who later become the captain of the team), and Saman...