Product Description

Two-time Academy Award® winner Denzel Washington (American Gangster) directs and stars with Academy Award® winner Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland) in this important and deeply inspiring page from the not-so-distant past (Richard Roeper, At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper). Inspired by a true story, Washington shines as a brilliant but politically radical debate team coach who uses the power of words to transform a group of underdog African American college students into an historical powerhouse that took on the Harvard elite. DVD Special Features:

Deleted Scenes
The Great Debaters: An Historical Perspective. That's What My Baby Likes; Music Video.
My Soul Is A Witness; Music Video
Theatrical Trailer
Sneak Peeks: Grace is Gone, Cassandra's Dream, I'm Not There, Hunting Party

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1385 in DVD
• Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
• Released on: 2008-05-13
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 124 minutes

Amazon.com
Inspired by real events, the fascinating The Great Debaters reveals one of the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement in its story of Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington in a captivating performance) and his champion 1935 debate club from the all-African-American Wiley College in Texas. Tolson, a Wiley professor, labor organizer, modernist poet, and much else, runs a rigorous debate program at the school, selecting four students as his team in ’35, among them the future founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Washington, who directed The Great Debaters from a script by Robert Eisele (The Dale Earnhardt Story), anchors the story with the team’s measurable progress, but the film is also about the state of race relations in America at the height of the Great Depression. With lynchings of black men and women a common form of entertainment and black subjugation for many rural whites, the idea of talented and highly intelligent African-American young people learning to think on their feet during debates would seem almost a hopeless endeavor. But that’s not the way Tolson sees it, as his students serve themselves and the cause of racial equality in America with energetic arguments in favor of progressive government and non-violence as a viable social movement. There are some startling moments in this movie, particularly the sight of a man found lynched and burned to death, and an extraordinary moment in which we see black sharecroppers and white farmers engaged with Tolson in arguments about unionizing together. Forest Whitaker is outstanding as Farmer’s emotionally-reserved father, also a Wiley professor. This is the kind of film where one hopes two great actors such as the elder Whitaker and Washington will have a scene together, and when it comes it’s as powerful as one might hope. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

One of year's best
Great cast, even the student actors, but Washington and Whitaker bookend the whole movie. Strong and challenging script with several emotionally charged scenes. Mixes history, logic, rascism, workers rights, and drama with convincing authority. Excellent.

Paid for - never received!!
I never received the DVD that I paid for. I waited two months, emailed them and NEVER even received a response from them. Will anyone listen now? Hard to say.

The affirmative case for civil disobedience
Wiley college debates Harvard on the topic of civil disobedience. 1935, blacks were lynched in Texas, a form of mob justice. The law did not protect blacks from this form of violence.

Issues raise:
* Jim Crow laws
* African Americans not allow to attend White Colleges
* Debate limited to Black colleges
* Inequality within the law
* Inequality in educational fund distribution
* High percent of crime and punishment associated with African Americans
* Harvards struggle to racially integrate with Blacks

A divine law can not be superceded by man made law. If man made law becomes oppressive or negligent then revolt of those laws or the lack of law can be either resisted by violence or civil disobedience. A proposition that would carry forward many decades later with the freedom riders and their protest of unfair transportation policies discriminating against blacks.

Who is our judge? God is our Judge. Why is he our judge? Because God decides what is right or wrong. Who is our opponent? There is no opponent because he resides on the side of error.