As good as their words: The Great Debaters

Denzel Washington is donating $1 million to Wiley College, featured in his new movie “The Great Debaters,” to re-establish its debate team. The gift was announced Tuesday by college officials.

Mr. Washington was in Marshall last week for a screening of the film, a story about Wiley’s 1930s debate team. He stars as the educator and poet Melvin Tolson, who led the all-black college’s elite debate squad. During his appearance, Mr. Washington, 52, said he would like to see the team get going again.

Marshall is a city of about 24,000, located 140 miles east of Dallas. Wiley has about 926 students. Attention drawn to the school because of the movie also was key to Wal-Mart pledging $100,000 for a scholarship fund and a Dallas businessman promising $300,000.

Photo: L-R, James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), Burgess (Jermaine Williams), unknown extra as a Wiley College student, Lowe (Nate Parker), Samantha (Jurnee Smollett), unknown extra as Wiley College student

As good as their words
Jurnee Smollett, a 21-year-old actress with Louisiana roots, had never heard of Wiley College when she got the script last year for the movie that just might change her life.

She knew nothing of Wiley's greatest moment, the day in 1935 when a debate team from the struggling black school beat the defending national champions from the University of Southern California in a nationally broadcast debate.

"I was ashamed that I didn't know that story," she said recently while promoting the film, The Great Debaters, in Dallas. "I didn't know anyone who did know the story. Why didn't I know?"

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HENRIETTA BELL WELLS, Great Debater overcame odds to bust barriers. The team's sole woman and last survivor grew up in Houston, Texas.

The Great Debaters, opening in theaters on Christmas Day, tells the story of the triumph of underdogs. It is also Henrietta Bell Wells' story.

Born in Houston's Fourth Ward on the banks of Buffalo Bayou and raised by a struggling single mother from the West Indies, Wells became the only female member of the 1930 debate team from Wiley College who participated in the first collegiate interracial debate in the United States. She is the last surviving member of the 1930s team coached by Melvin B. Tolson.

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Photo: Denzel Washington (Mel Tolson), Jurnee Smollett (Samantha), Nate Parker (Henry Low) and Denzel Whitaker (James Farmer Jr) in The Great Debaters movie.