Posted by Jim Lindgren:
THE GREAT DEBATERS.—
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_12_16-2007_12_22.shtml#1198121525
With the TV trailers piquing my interest, I decided to learn more
about the background of the new Denzel Washington movie, [1]The Great
Debaters:
From two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and an
ensemble cast lead by Washington that includes Academy Award winner
Forest Whitaker, comes THE GREAT DEBATERS. Inspired by a true
story, THE GREAT DEBATERS chronicles the journey of Professor
Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington), a brilliant, but volatile,
debate team coach who uses the power of words to shape a group of
underdog students from a small African American college (Wiley
College) in the deep south into a historically elite debate team. A
controversial figure, Professor Tolson challenged the social mores
of the time and was under constant fire for his unconventional and
ferocious teaching methods as well as his radical political views.
In the pursuit for excellence, Tolson's debate team receives a
groundbreaking invitation to debate Harvard University's
championship team.
Wiley College�s [2]account of the factual background includes this
revelation:
According to James Farmer, Tolson's drive to win, to eliminate
risk, meant that his debaters were actors more than spontaneous
thinkers. Tolson wrote all the speeches and the debate team
memorized them. He drilled them on every gesture and every pause.
Tolson was so skilled at the art of debating that he also figured
out the arguments that opponents would make and wrote rebuttals for
them-before the actual debate. . . .
In 1935, he led the Wiley Debate Team to the national championship
to defeat the University of Southern California before an audience
of eleven hundred people.
Wiley College should be commended for posting such a candid account of
one of their most famous and accomplished faculty members. I haven�t
been able to determine if the Wiley team ever debated Harvard, or
instead whether in the movie Harvard was substituted for USC.
Wanting to know more about Tolson, I read a fascinating [3]account by
David Gold of Tolson�s impressive pedagogical techniques, an article
that unfortunately did not discuss his composition of his debaters�
arguments. It appears that Tolson was extremely devoted to [4]teaching
his students to argue and write (using a teaching style that bore some
relation to Professor Kingsfield�s in The Paper Chase):
In coaching debate, he stressed the logical fallacies, always
seeking to find the �crack� in the other team�s strategies. He
trained students by having them debate him for up to a year before
allowing them to join the team and by playing the devil�s advocate
in any discussion. When he exhausted his own copious body of
knowledge, he would bring in faculty from other fields to challenge
his students.
Tolson�s politics were quite radical. Here is Tolson�s [5]description
of a conservative:
�Conservatives have stood for prostitution, blood-letting,
polygamy, illiteracy, ignorance, witch-burning, voodooism, piracy,
plagues, child labor, social diseases, and cannibalism.�
�If a man isn�t a liberal or a radical, he is a joke or a foggy
among intelligent Folk.�
References
1. http://www.wileyc.edu/greatdebaters.php
2. http://www.wileyc.edu/greatdebaters.php
3. http://www.pe1404.com/docs/Tolson.pdf
4. http://www.pe1404.com/docs/Tolson.pdf
5. http://www.pe1404.com/docs/Tolson.pdf
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