The Great Debaters by Robert Eisele 8 out of 10*

The Great Debaters by Robert Eisele

8 out of 10*

This motion picture presents the poignant story of a few young, intelligent, brave, talented, perseverant, creative, gritty African American people, but also it is a narrative about desegregation, the horrors of racism, inequality of opportunity, abuse, emancipation, civil rights and disobedience.

Furthermore, the film is based on the real story of Professor Melvin B. Tolson aka the legendary Denzel Washington, who has taught at Wiley College Texas, a brilliant figure, militant for the rights of workers, alas, he might have been a communist in the process, which for the undersigned, a former citizen of a communist tyranny is anathema.

Professor Melvin Tolson lives in Marshall, Texas – called the last city to surrender at the end of the Civil War – where he selects, prepares, organizes a debate team in 1935 – 1936, against more than unfavorable odds, in  a period where racism was not just rampant, it was also sanctioned and institutionalized.

Indeed, in one of the debates that took place in Oklahoma, against some more liberal, open minded, but still biased white students, the members of the Wiley College debate team have to argue the point for freedom, desegregation and real empowerment of African Americans in the (that) present, not after many years…

If not now, when? Next week, in one hundred years? What about never – all this against the supposedly “enlighted” view of their opponents who thought segregation unfair, but that African Americans – called with a different word at the time – are not yet ready to enter white only university and such privileged places.

Melvin Tolson provokes his team early on in very challenging, thought provoking, intriguing debates, staring with unemployment, where Samantha Booke (with an e, as she emphasizes) states that the unemployed are suffering from hunger, making the professor pint out to Hamilton Burgess, who has no employment, he is there in attendance, but evidently does not suffer from malnutrition.

Hamilton Burgess would be a member of the final team, the select four, up to the point where a scandal involving their coach has broken and his father has asked him to challenge the professor to sate if he is a communist or not, and if he is, to get out of the debate group.

One night, as a large meeting is organized, Melvin Tolson, dressed differently than in class, to appeal to common workers, proves to be what is adversaries call an agitator and others would name an activist for workers ‘rights, the police and others attack the participants, catching a member of the debate team, James Farmer Jr., in the middle.

The latter has to answer the questioning of his father, the reverend James Farmer Sr. aka Forest Whitaker – who seems to be the father of Denzel Whitaker, portraying young James in the film – who is waiting at night for his son to return and wants to know where he has been.

The Farmer family is experiencing racism at first hand one day, as they drive on a road where a pig jumps in front of their car, white red neck – what is called “white trash” in Gone with the Wind – farmers pretend that pig was theirs, it is worth fifty dollars – more than 10 k in present day currency – and then abuse the reverend, calling him boy, making him carry the pig and addressing other insults.

Dr. James Farmer Sr. is instrumental in the release of Professor Tolson, even after they have had a confrontation, the father being worried that the activist may have dragged his son into activities that are bot for him, after the teacher has been arrested by the sheriff and his helpers.

In a more dramatic scene, Melvin Tolson and his team, Henry Lowe, Samantha Booke and James Farmer Jr. drive at night. Coming from a debate, when they arrive at the scene of a lynching, a mob of white monsters standing near the fuming corpse of an African American.

They barely escape – lucky and strange how none of the white red necks had no gun with them – as the teacher backs up his car in a rush, the white villains throw rocks at the windshield, but Alhamdulillah, they escape.

James Farmer Jr. would later use this argument in the climax, the debate that is broadcast all over the nation, on the radio, against Harvard, where he argues for civil disobedience in situations like the one African Americans find themselves in, where they are killed, benefit from very few rights, they are discriminated against and killed.

He also uses in the same climactic debate the example of Amritsar, where the British occupying army in India has killed at least 379 innocent, unarmed protesters, and the peaceful protest and fight lead by the famous Mahatma Gandhi – earlier called Mohandas.

There are other issues inside the team, apart from the tragedies they witnessed, the abandonment of one member, Henry and Samantha seem to be infatuated, if not in love with each other, while James Jr. is also attracted, if not more by the girl and upset that for a series of confrontations he had not had the chance to get to the podium.

The Great Debaters is a grand film, about values, principles, morals, dark moments in American history and the people who dedicated their lives to change a rotten system and bring about Freedom for all….alas, if we look at what Americans – granted not with the popular vote – have propelled to the White House in 2016, we may feel that it was all Much Ado About Nothing.

However, this will change again, Insha’Allah!