'The Great Debaters' now on DVD

Movieland
By Clif’ Warren
When the multi-awarded film biography of M. B. Tolson’s early life – entitled “The Great Debaters” – appeared in local theatres during the winter, the movie was such an emotional experience for me I needed more time to consider it. Melvin Tolson was on the faculty of Langston University when I arrived in Oklahoma. We became good friends through our mutual friend, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Karl Shapiro. Shapiro, had been my graduate professor of poetry at the School of Letters at Indiana University, and he played a significant role in Tolson’s late but meteoric rise to fame. It was Shapiro who praised Tolson’s collection of poems, “Harlem Gallery,” to the skies in an essay/review on the cover of “The New York Times Book Review.” Shapiro’s profile set people all across America scurrying for copies of the book during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
Civil rights leaders across the country led marches with their followers chanting Tolson’s inspiring poem “Dark Symphony.” Shapiro urged me to go over to Langston and meet Tolson and have him as a guest on the book review spot on “Dannysday,” where I not only handled the book reviews but sometimes chatted with guests. Tolson was a spectacular reader of his poems on TV. He agreed to appear at a summer poetry workshop I was conducting at UCO — then Central State — and people came from all across the campus to hear Tolson speak about poetry and read from his work.
Little did I know at the time how meaningful Tolson’s friendship with me would become, or the way our friendship would serve to enhance our lives. Nor did I realize what a short span of time Tolson had on this earth.
That I would be chosen to give his eulogy at Langston was the remotest idea imaginable, for Tolson brimmed with life and always cheered everyone else on.
I feel sad that I did not know about M. B.’s brave early life at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, before he arrived at Langston in 1947. He had carefully packaged that part of his life up. He rarely mentioned Wiley College, although I knew that he had organized agricultural workers in Texas – many of them black – to fight for their basic human rights in a state where innocent black men were still being hanged for simply being in what was considered the wrong place at a given time. I also knew that, even though he was the son of a Methodist minister, many people thought he was a Communist, and he often teasingly called me “a fat Capitalist.”
Oprah Winfrey produced “The Great Debaters,” and her film presents a remarkable portrait of Tolson and his times that will keep you mesmerized and remind you how terribly difficult it was to be a black man in a white society before the civil rights movement. Further, Oklahoma City University plays a significant part in the story, and having viewed the movie, you will be even prouder of your Oklahoma heritage.
“The Great Debaters” is set in Marshall, Texas, in 1935 at Wiley College. Viewers meet James Farmer (Forest Whitaker), the president of Wiley, and debate coach and faculty member, M. B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) in the opening scenes of the film. Young black students in a classroom are being reminded that “education is the only way out of darkness.” Wiley is a Methodist college for whites. Blacks during the 1930s in Texas were not allowed to attend state universities.
In the classroom where he teaches debate, young instructor, Tolson is reminding his students about the trials ahead for them. He illustrates those trials by reciting lines from the important black poets of the day. First, Langston Hughes: “I am the darker brother/ I too am American.” He goes on to quote also from Countee Cullen, another of the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, whom Tolson had come to know when he worked on a Master’s degree at Columbia University.
Within Tolson’s classroom are the future members of his debate team: Handsome Nate Parker portraying brilliant, self-educated, and passionate Henry Lowe; impressive Denzel Whitaker, zealous student James Farmer, Jr., only fourteen years old and living up to the strict rules his college administrator/father has set for him; beautiful Jurnee Smollett as shy, intelligent and eager Samantha Booke, only girl on the team; and Jermaine Williams as Hamilton Burgess, a new generation black, knowing and sure and wanting to make his mark under Tolson’s tutelage.
At Wiley College there are only 360 students, of whom 45 try out for the popular debate team under the leadership of Tolson. Of course, only four students will be selected. Denzel Washington as Tolson proudly announces that this is a “blood sport’ and “our weapons are words.” Up until this point no girl has served on the team. But Samantha Booke is no ordinary young lady; yet as a transfer student she is somewhat unsure she will win a spot. Tolson, however, immediately recognizes her unusual abilities and seeks her out.
Tolson trains his young people to think and respond quickly on their feet. The topics are heavy ones that can be argued several ways: child labor practices, welfare policies.
He tests the students on syllogisms and ironies. The subtext of Tolson’s methodology is that this training will not only teach them how to win in a debate but also how they can win in life and no longer remain the underdogs. A thematic echo announces: “We do what we have to do, so we can do what we want to do.”
Highly dramatic episodes in the story drive home the points of why and how black men must be quick and resilient thinkers: On the way back from church one evening President Farmer, his wife Pearl (Kimberly Elise), and his son James, Jr. are riding in their car down a dirt road through the woods near the house of a red neck white farm family. James Farmer accidentally hits a small pig. The pig suddenly had run out in front of the car. Armed whites order the elder Farmer from his car and demand $25 for the pig. Farmer has no where near that much cash with him; he offers to endorse to them his monthly college pay check of $17.36, but they continue to harass him.
Farmer is particularly afraid for his wife and son. The men taunt him: “Check better be good, boy.” Then they make him lift the dead hog and put it in their truck bed.
Young James, Jr. cannot believe his father must go through such an ordeal. He watches embarrassed as his father remains calm but frightened complying with the red necks’ wishes. Thereafter James Jr. becomes even more a proponent of M. B. Tolson’s strong stances on social justice issues. But that gets him into significant trouble with his father.
One evening James Jr. spies Tolson headed down the street dressed like a poor agricultural worker. The young man peeks inside a barn where Tolson is organizing poor farm workers into a union. Meanwhile, local government lackeys set the barn afire. They brutally attack the fleeing workers. James Jr. is caught in the melee and must be rescued by Tolson. During the aftermath he promises never to tell on Tolson. But when he arrives home it is after 1 a.m., and his father is pacing the floor and demanding to know where he had been.
James Jr.’s reply is: “I can’t tell you, sir.”
Meanwhile, the debate team is sailing along. The debaters defeat all the black colleges in the region except one and become the first black team to challenge a white university and win when Oklahoma City University, a Methodist institution, accepts the challenge and is defeated.
When the Wiley College team is allowed to challenge the Harvard University team, it has unfortunately just lost to Prairie View because James Jr. did not deliver a strong enough argument. During the trip to Prairie View the team misses the correct road in the middle of the night while they are driving, and they arrive on the scene immediately after a young black man has been lynched by a mob, a horrible memory for them. Tolson, the car’s driver, manages to turn the car around and race off quickly.
How can the Wiley College debate team possibly beat Harvard, especially now that Tolson cannot travel with them becomes the team’s huge puzzle. The are even given a new topic and must work diligently researching in their hotel room right up to the time of the debate. Meanwhile Tolson is caught up in the legalities necessitated by his organizing the farmers.
The tension reaches a crescendo at Harvard. Superb acting, an excellent script, and the well-paced direction of Denzel Washington make “The Great Debaters” an incredibly fine film.
From the time Tolson appeared on campus at Langston in 1947 he was one of the most popular professors. When I finally met Tolson some 16 years later through Karl Shapiro, Tolson had not yet been invited to read from his work on an Oklahoma campus. It was a great pleasure for me to have him come to Central and work with the students. Soon Shapiro came to Langston too, to meet Tolson in person as well as his family. and to view the famous “Zulu room” in the Tolson home. In the basement of Tolson’s home he had painted on the walls the history of the famous African tribes during the time they represented the highest form of culture achieved in the history of the world. We all had a wonderful evening celebrating Tolson’s achievement that evening. One of the pictures from the evening’s celebration accompanies this article.
Soon Tolson was being called on to appear on campuses across the nation to give readings. Tolson would sometimes be driven to Oklahoma City the night before his departure and would stay with me and my family. He did so on several occasions and felt comfortable enough to arise early and help with the breakfast making. I can still hear him singing in the kitchen. He became our family’s favorite visitor.
Tolson took a special interest in my small son Carey. He would bounce Carey on his knee and sing to him. He called Carey “Little Spider” because of a Richmond Spiders t-shirt I bought him. In a matter of months Tolson was asked to go to Tuskegee to be Artist-in-Residence. Tolson’s own son, M. B. Tolson, Jr., had studied French in Paris and was then serving as Professor of French at O.U.
Early on in his career, Tolson had been named Poet Laureate of Liberia, along with Duke Ellington as the esteemed composer. I was happy to share news of his latest awards as well as his happy memories as we talked into the night.
But there are sad memories, too. One night Tolson telephoned me from Washington, D.C. because President Lyndon Johnson was presenting him and Duke Ellington with the medal of freedom at Constitution Hall. He wanted me to have a story placed in the main Oklahoma City newspaper about the event that night. I telephoned the paper and gave all the facts as Tolson had given them to me. Nothing ever appeared.
Days before his death from cancer in 1966, M.B. again telephoned from Dallas to ask if I could get the news out that he was in the hospital and would like to hear from his friends.
In spite of my being on TV twice a week locally, I failed to make waves. Sometimes we as a people fail to recognize the genius in our midst, and far too often prejudices we feel have been swept away have only been swept under he rug.