African Americans In The Film 'The Great Debaters'

The Great Debaters is an intriguing film set in the 1930s about a professor that goes by the name of Melvin Tolson who teaches students from Wiley College, in Texas, the fundamentals of debating. During this day in age, if an African American didn’t “stay in their place” they would be ridiculed for such insane behavior. One can only imagine how difficult it must have been for them to get through a debate without caring if they had crossed the line on a touchy subject. But through it all this debate team became one of the most successful teams in America. They were undefeated after they won national championships over Harvard University. There were three main debaters in this film; two male and one female. The females name was Samantha Booke. In the film,

Mr. Farmer Jr learned most of his teaching from his father before he joined the debate team. His trial and tribulations are stuck between him and his conscientious. Then we have Mr. Henry Lowe; a young man with his whole life ahead of him. At first he wasn’t interested in anything to deal with debate, but he is very easy to persuade.

The Great Debaters has many important scenes that show what it was like to be an African American in the 1930 's. In the movie there are scenes that show whites and African Americans as thoroughly separated in both public and private settings. In this movie, race is an issue especially for the African Americans. There was scene in the movie where the main characters were driving late at night heading to reach the next town of the debate tournament. As they were on their way, they saw two black males hung up from a tree and lynched to death. On the bus scene with Samantha, a Wiley debate team member, the whites enjoy a front row seat while African Americans are forced to sit in the back; off the bus you see a bench labeled whites only, and in Wiley College you notice only African Americans. The separation by skin color