MOVIE · 2007
The Great Debaters
DramaRomance126 min
In 1935 Texas, Wiley College professor and poet Mel Tolson pushes a small team of African American students into the world of competitive debate, where every argument is shaped by segregation both on campus and beyond it. Denzel Washington is Tolson, a brilliant, demanding coach whose political outspokenness makes him as controversial as he is inspiring. Nate Parker and Jurnee Smollett are among the students drawn into his orbit as the team rises from an underfunded Black college to challenge the academic establishment. Based on a true story, the film follows their climb toward a national showdown with Harvard, with words used as both scholarship and resistance.
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