Movie Review: The Great Debaters

 This is a movie about committing to a vision that many might say is impossible. This is what makes it so inspiring to watch.  Yet, at the same time, it is a  difficult movie to view.  Set in the mid-1930’s it shows all to clearly the racism and cruelty of the Jim Crow South and the apathy of the rest of the nation to even acknowledge what was going on.  Set in an small all-black college in Texas, it tells the true story a debate society that broke the color barriers to participate at the highest level of the craft.  As the students, and their coach, played by Denzel Washington, pursue this dream, they face overt and covert racism.  They are nearly killed by a mob when they accidently stumble on a (graphically portrayed) lynching.  Like Schindler’s List  and Amistad this movie asks viewers to see and acknowledge the price of racism for all people.  Like those movies, it is well worth viewing.