EngageMovies

The Great Debaters is a great, must see film directed by Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey. It is based on a true story about the Wiley College debate team of the 1930s who went undefeated for ten years and was one of the first Black colleges or universities to debate at a white institution, which was Harvard University. The movie is based on the article in American Legacy magazine by Tony Scherman. Chronicling many of the issues of the Jim Crow South, The Great Debaters displays the intellectual prowess and personal fortitude of Black college students. Although much could be said about this uplifting film, Engage Diversity will leave you with the last affirmative argument from Wiley College while at Harvard University on the topic of "civil disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice."

"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 floor board. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes... and worse... the shame. What was this Negroes 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 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 Great Debaters has already won esteemed awards including Best Picture from the African American Film Critics, the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America, and the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review. It is also a Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture. http://www.thegreatdebatersmovie.com/

http://www.charlottevibe.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=editorial.detail&id=1217

http://www.americanlegacymag.com/