In The Great Debaters, Academy Award winners Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker come together to portray the struggle of an African American debate team from Texas in 1935. This uplifting drama is based on a true story about a small East Texas all-black college that rises to the top of the nation's debate teams.
A poet and debating coach at Wiley College, Professor Melvin Tolson sees debating as a "blood sport" and recruits the meanest and brightest. There's some tough training, romantic heat over two of the debaters, and some racist tactics (including a witnessed lynching) before the big match up against Harvard, adding to the overall emotion force.
The Great Debaters doesn't shy away from showing the humiliation and persecution of blacks in the Jim Crow South. When James Farmer Sr.(Forest Whitaker), accompanied by his family, accidentally runs over a pig, his humiliation at the hands of the owner and his redneck buddies makes your stomach turn.
