Great Debaters, The (2007) Movie Script
THE GREAT DEBATERS
Heavenly Father, we come before Thee,
knee-bent and body-bowed,
in the humblest way that we know how.
Father who controls and knows all things:
Both the living and dying of all creatures.
Give us strength and
wisdom to do Thy work.
In God's name we pray.
Let all Gods people say:
Amen.
When I was slippin' up, she looked down,
saw the head of something...
...was right there in
her hands.
She told me was a wild animal.
I say then it was Gods revenge.
You go heathen, Henry.
You know what I've got right here?
What?
Something very wild
/"When I was a child, I spake as a child,
/I understood as a child,
/I thought as a child.
/But when I became a man,
/I put away all childish things."
(1Cor 13:11. KJV)
/Freshman Class,
/I believe we are the most
/privileged people in America.
/Because we have the
/most important job...
/in America.
/The education of our young people.
Trudell!
Who the hell is he?
Just my husband.
I'm gonna cut your head off.
/We must impress upon our young people.
/That there will be
/difficulties that they face.
You're scared, ain't you?
You do raise
and twice my size?
/They must defeat them.
/They must do what
/they have to do...
/...in order to do what they want to do.
/Education is the only way out.
Get up, get up, baby, come on.
/The way out of ignorance.
Like cut people? Home boy?
Want to cut people, Trudell, uhm?
Get your hands off me!
The way out of darkness
Into the glorious light.
WHITES Only
Come on, give me back,
come on, give me back.
- "To precious Hamilton."
- This is not fun.
Give me back.
Have a seat.
/I am...
/...the darker brother.
/They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
/But I laugh, and eat well,
and grow strong.
/Tomorrow I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
/Nobody'll dare say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen", then.
/Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am
/And be ashamed, --
/I, too, am America.
(I, Too)
Who wrote that?
Langston Hughes, 1924.
/Hating you shall be a game...
/played with cool hands...
bR E V O L U T I O N/b
/Memory will lay its hands...
/upon your breast.
/And you will understand my hatred.
(Hatred)
Gwendolyn Bennett wrote that.
She was born in 1902.
Unofficially.
You see in most states...
negroes were denied
birth certificate.
which means I can lie about my
age for the rest of my life.
You think that's funny?
To be born without record.
Mr. Reed, hand this up.
I'm going to introduce you
to some new voices this semester
There is revolution going on in the north.
In Harlem, they're changing the way...
negroes in America think.
I am talking about poets like
Hughes, Bennett,
Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen.
/Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
with the stars strung for a rattle.
/I cut my teeth as the black raccoon...
/...for implements of battle.
(C. Cullen: Saturday's Child)
Meet me after class.
What's a professor doing
in the middle of the night,
dressed like a corn-chopper?
What is a student doing
in the middle of the night, throwing his life away?
It's funny, I thought
I was defeating myself.
I remember you.
Couple years ago
but you disappeared.
What happened?
I come and go, whatever it suits me.
- Suspension?
- Leaves of absents.
Why did you come back?
School is the only place
where you can read all day.
Except prison.
I want you to come
by my house tonight 7:30.
Corner of Junho Campos.
Why would I do that?
Holding try-outs for
the debate team.
You're sure you want somebody like me?
No, that's why you're trying out.
/"...driven by the wind and tossed..."
(Eph 4:14)
Do well tonight, Junior.
/Of the 360 students here
/at Wiley College.
/Only 45 of you were
/brave enough...
/to try out for the debate team.
/Of that 45 only 4 be who'll remain
standing when the tryouts are over.
/Why? Because debate
/is blood sport.
It's combat, but your weapons are words.
Come on in. Now that Mr. Farmer
has joined us, we can begin.
Sit down, Mr. Farmer.
Not right there, over there.
James, come this way!
- Good evening Mrs. Tolson.
- Good evening.
- We're waiting for you Mr. Farmer.
- I'm going, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Farmer.
You smell very good, Mr. Farmer.
- Thank you, sir.
- You're very welcome.
Gentelmen and Lady!
This is the hot...
...spot.
You will enter it at your own risk.
Mr Tolson, what about debaters
from last year?
Don't ask a question you
already know the answer to.
Get up, you will be first.
You, right here in the hotspot.
Debate starts with a proposition,
with an idea, resolved.
Child labor should be regulated
by the Federal Goverment.
The first debater
argues the affirmative.
Affirmative means that you afford something.
Mr. Reed will argue affirmative,
the second debater argues the negative.
- Negative means that you are what?
- Against.
Brilliant, Mr. Burgess.
You shall argue the affirmative,
Mr. Reed, go.
Well, sir I begin with a quote
from the poet Cleghorn.
/"The golf links lie so near the mill...
/That almost every day
the laboring children can look out and...
/- And...
- And watch the man at play? (Sarah Cleghorn)
It that what you learned
from last year, Mr. Reed?
To start something and not finish it, is it?
- No sir.
- Sit down.
Who's next?
You, stand up, stand up.
Is getting late, how much longer can you hide?
I'm not hiding, sir.
I transfered from my college
just to come and try out of your team.
I am deeply moved.
What's your name?
- Samantha Booke.
- Booke?
- With an "e".
- Arise Miss Booke with an "e".
Into the hotspot
Miss Booke with an "e".
You know there's never been a female
on the debating team, ever?
Yes, sir. I know that.
What makes you think
you should be the first?
- Because I am just as qualified as...
- Withstanding Miss Booke.
-...anybody else. My gender has nothing...
- Resolved.
Welfare
discourages hard work.
- You're logging the negative.
- All right.
Walfare takes away a man
strongest reason for working...
Which is survival.
And that weakness the will of the poor.
How do you rebut that, Miss Booke with "e"?
I would say it does not.
Most of the new deal goes to
children anyway and to the handicapped...
- ...and to old people.
- Is it a fact or conjecture?
- It is a fact.
- Speak up.
- It is a fact.
- What's your source?
- The President.
- Of the United States?
Yes, sir.
That's your primary source?
You spoke to president
Roosevelt personally?
Of course not. I did not speak to him personally.
But I listen to his "Fire Side Chat".
- A radio broadcast?
- Yes.
Any other sources?
Any other sources?
Yes, there are other sources...
Like that looking at a mother's eyes
when she can't feed her kids.
Without welfare, Mr. Tolson,
people would be starving.
- Who is starving, Miss Booke?
- The unemployed are starving.
Mr. Burgess here, he is unemployed
obviously he's not starving.
I drew you in, Miss Booke.
You gave a faulty premise,
so your syllogism fell apart.
- Syllogism?
- Your logic fell apart.
Major premise,
the unemployed are starving.
Minor premise,
Mr. Burgess is unemployed.
Conclusion, Mr. Burgess
is starving.
Your major premise was
based on a faulty assumption.
Classic fallacy.
Who's next?
You were right.
- Tell us your name.
- I'm Henry Lowe with an "e".
All right, Mr. Lowe. I will name a subject,
you speak a few words
opportune quote from the literature.
Go ahead.
Beauty.
/"I heard the old, old men say
all that's beautiful drifts away...
/...like the waters."
(William Butler Yeats)
Very good.
History.
And name the author this time.
/"History is a nightmare
from which I'm trying to awake."
James Joyce.
Self-pity.
/"I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself."
D. H. Lawrence.
I love D. H. Lawrence,
have you ever read?
- Mr. Farmer.
- Yes, sir.
I have eyes on the back of my
head and ears on both sides.
Stand up.
Tell me the irony in the name
Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
Bethlehem is the bithplace
of Jesus, Prince of peace.
And Bethlehem Steel makes weapons of war.
Very good, sit down.
Good.
/Who's next?
Samantha.
Mr. Tolson, he is tough, isn't he?
Sure he is.
I'm James.
Is your father Dr. James Farmer?
Yes, he is.
I'm taking the eulogy from him and that
man speaks in tongues.
French, Greek, Hebrew, Latin.
How many languages does he speak?
- Seven languages.
- Seven languages.
He must be the smartest
man in Texas.
That's not saying much.
So why do you want
to be on the team?
I think, it would be a good training.
- For what?
- Being a lawyer.
Lawyer? It's great.
You know how many negro women
practise law in the state?
- Two.
- Exactly.
One it was a hot.
But look at you, Mr. Farmer,
how old are you anyway?
I'll be 16.
In 21 months.
Young lady, James!
I just want to thank you.
- For what?
- For your performance tonight.
I mean, how many other students
have a stand-up to Tolson?
- I did.
- No, you answered a question.
And I spout off few quotes.
Miss Brooke with an "e"...
- She fought back.
- And lost.
But you did't have to lose. Why isn't the
"Fire Side Chat" a legitimate source?
Because Tolson said so?
Nobody has better access to
those statistics than the President.
If you'd have called Tolson
on that, you'd have won.
I don't know. I'm sure that
he would be able to come up with something.
Goodnight, James!
Goodnight, Samantha.
Can you believe that he's 14
years old and he's in the college?
You are gifted, all of you.
But I want you to know that I chose
this team for balance.
And none of you should
take it as a failure.
As a denigration of your intellect.
Denigrate, that's the word for you.
From Latin word "Niger", to defame, to black.
Is always there, isn't it? Even in the dictionary.
Even in the speech of a negro professor.
Somehow black is always
acquainted with failure.
Well write in your own dictionary and
mark this as a new beginning.
Whether you make the team or not.
The Wiley College for Ransack
Society of 1935-36, is as follows.
The debaters will be...
Mr. Hamilton Burgess,
from last year's team.
Sit down, Mr. Burgess.
Mr. Henry Lowe.
Our alternates, Miss
Samantha Booke with an "e".
And finally...
Junior!
Slow down!
- Where is dad?
- Quiet, he's writing the lecture.
- Dad.
- Junior.
What is the greatest
weakness of man?
Not believing? Doubt?
That's it. Thank you Junior.
Matthew 14:31.
That will be the lesson.
Dad.
/"Oh, you of little faith
why do you doubt?"
- Dad.
- What is it, son?
I made the debate team.
Well, congratulations!
And who is on your team?
There is 4 of us,
I'm one of the alternates.
Who's ahead of you?
Hamilton Burgess and Henry Lowe.
And another alternate
is Samantha Booke.
- There's a girl?
- She wants to be a lawyer.
- Lawyer?
- She is very intelligent.
Is she pretty?
I don't know.
I've never really noticed.
Because extracurricular activities
like the debate team are fine.
But you must not take
the eye of the ball, son.
Yes, sir.
So, what do we do here?
We do we have to do,
so we can do we want to do.
- What do you have to do right now?
- My homework.
- Do get toward.
- Yes, sir.
My daddy owns grubs so there're as
apples, bananas, cookies,
donuts, eggs, figs and gonzolabic.
- Nice.
- What is a gonzolabic?
Hogwash, hogwash.
Ready, steady, go!
- Apricot.
- Oh, come on.
- Why no apricot?
Look out!
Who was there?
I'm not sure.
- Sit down!
- You stay put.
- What is it?
- It's pig.
Only pig.
Shut up, dog!
Junior get into the car.
- What the hell happened to my hog?
- Sorry about that.
Came out of nowhere I didn't see coming.
- You kill my hog, boy .
- I'm truly sorry. I gladly pay you for it.
How much? How much you want?
Some cost you 25 dollars.
Only have a few bucks on
right now but I can...
I do have a cheque.
My monthly cheque from
Wiley College in Marshall.
It's 17 dollars 36 cents.
You may have that,
and I would endorse that over to you.
You do what?
I will sign the cheque over to you.
- Well, let me see it.
- Is in the car with my wife.
Can I walk to the car now?
Junior, get in the car.
- Give me the salary cheque, Pearl.
- We need that money, James.
Just give me the cheque.
Come on.
I thought it was in here.
Relax. All right, you'll find.
Here is.
Here it is.
The cheque better be good, boy.
Is good.
Well, pick it up!
What the hell you think you're going?
You gotta help us
get this hog in my truck.
Come on, grab the tail in there, boy.
All right, on three.
Damned nigers a bit too good to
get the hands dirty.
- Dad.
- I told you to get in the car.
When I tell you to do something,
Junior, you do it.
- Who's the judge?
- The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who's your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
- The judge is God.
- Louder!
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Speak the truth!
Speak the truth!
Yes, sir. I do like to talk.
Is that a virtue or a vice?
Well, I have to admit I've always
wanted to be the quiet mysterious type.
Only I can't keep my mouth ain't long enough.
Would you punch yourself
on a street fight, Mr. Burgess?
No, sir.
Then don't punch yourself
in a word fight.
You don't have to make
fun of yourself.
Use your humor against your opponent.
- Mr. Farmer.
- Yes sir.
Happy Mr. Farmer, tell us
one thing we don't know about your father.
- He is the first negro PhD.
- One thing we don't know about your father, Mr. Farmer.
He walked from Florida to Massachusetts
to go to College at Boston University.
He graduated magna cum laude.
Mr. Lowe.
Tell us about your father.
Why don't you tell us
something about your father?
I'm trying to get to know
each other, Mr. Lowe.
And I'm just trying to get to know you, Mr. Tolson.
I'm not the one on the debate team.
Are we not engaged
in the debate right now?
All right.
I'll take the affirmative.
Take the meanest, most restless nigger.
Strip him off his clothes
in front of the remaining male niggers,
female niggers and niggers infants.
Tar and feather him.
Tie each leg to a horse facing
in opposite direction,
Set him on fire and beat both horses,
until they tear him apart.
In front of the male,
female and nigger infants.
Both whip and beat the remaining
nigger males within an inch of their life.
Do not kill them.
But put the fear
of God in them.
For they can be useful
for future breeding.
Anybody know who Willy Lynch was?
Anybody? Raise your hand?
No one?
He was a vicious slave-owner in the West Indies.
The slave-masters in the
colony of Virginia were having trouble
"controlling" their slaves,
So they sent for Mr.
Lynch to teach them his methods.
The word "lynching" came from his last name.
His methods were very simple,
but they were diabolical.
Keep the slave physically strong,
But psychologically weak
and dependent on the slave master.
Keep the body, take the mind.
I...
...and any other
professor on this campus...
...are here to help you...
...to find, take back and keep...
...your righteous mind.
Because obviously you have lost it.
That is all you need
to know about me, Mr. Lowe.
Class dismissed.
- Wanna dance?
- Yes.
Come.
You're good dancer.
Thank you, I practice in my room.
Keep it.
- Excuse me, your punch.
- Thank you.
It's better I go to get
me some punch.
Here. Take my if you want.
It's good.
All right?
You know, I can take you to a place
where's real music, right?
- I'm not living here, Henry.
- Just for a spell. I'll bring you right back.
And what would my chaperone say?
You'll be back before she ever
knows you're gone.
What's the matter, you afraid?
What's the matter, you afraid?
Mr. Tolson.
Mr. Tolson!
And tell them the
sharecroppers are just wage them
So they don't have to slip
their farms on substitute
And that's why the Southern Tenant Farmers
Union want you to organize.
To make things right.
- Well, how? Strike?
- They'll be just bringing the mexicans.
We'll organise them too.
Yes, so they could shoot us all down,
white, colored and mexicans.
That is exactly what they
want you to believe.
The farmer boys
want you to believe that...
...they'll make war, but they won't.
They may be fools but they are
smart businessman.
And once we organize, they'll see,
Even guns can't stop us.
- They stopped them in Elaine.
- Why don't you talk about that?
About how they killed 100 colored
sharecroppers for trying to organize.
- That was 1919, friend.
- There was my dad and they gunned down, friend.
We're sorry about that.
But those men stood
alone, that's my point.
This is 1935.
We got the National Labor-
Relations Board,
- We've got the A. F. of L. (American Federation of Labor).
- You ain't got shit.
He ain't got shit.
Hey they come!
Hey they come!
Get the lights!
Everybody get down.
Come on. Let's go.
This way.
Come on.
All right.
What are doing out here?
I saw you. I was walking by your
house and I saw you dressed plainly.
I'm dressed like them, son. You think they'd
listen to me if I was wearing a tuxedo?
Listen to me!
Are you listening?
You can not tell anybody what
you saw tonight. You understand?
Not even my wife knows about this.
I won't tell anybody.
I promise.
I promise on Sacred Bible
I won't tell anybody.
Jesus...
Come on.
Junior...
Are you just gonna stay in there?
No, sir.
Sorry, I'm late.
You're sorry?
Is 1 o'clock in the morning.
I've been looking
everywhere for you.
I went to Mr. Tolson's
house after dance.
I thought you might have done that.
That's why I went over there.
I talked to Ruth. She said, Tolson was
gone and that you weren't there.
Son, I give you another chance.
Where were you?
- I can't tell you, sir.
- Good Lord, boy.
We've been worried to
death about you.
Junior, where were you?
- I can't tell you sir.
- Why not?
- I don't know.
- I don't know?
I don't know is not
an acceptable answer, Junior.
- Junior.
- Silence is not an option either.
- You've been drinking?
- Honey.
Because you must have been drinking,
coming up in my house...
...talking about you don't wanna
tell me where you've been at 1:30 in the morning.
- Come on baby, tell me what's the matter.
- Mum, nothing is the matter.
Now, something is the matter,
something is wrong.
Were you with that girl,
were you with that girl?
No.
Because you're 14 years old, Junior.
You've got plenty of time for girls later.
I wasn't with Samantha.
Junior.
Then where were you?
Where were you, honey?
You don't wanna talk?
Fine.
But you're not leaving this house.
- What do you mean?
- Just what I said.
You're not leaving this house
until you tell me the truth.
- What about school?
- Don't go question on what I just said, boy.
- Mum, what about school?
- And don't raise your voice!
I'm not raising my voice.
You're gonna raising your
voice in the house?
I am not raising my voice!
You do for me the job, pay all the wages?
Are you a man, now?
- I'm not not raising my voice!
- Just apologise!
I didn't say anything
what shall I apologise.
Like you apologized
that pig farmer?
What you said, boy?
You go to your room.
Junior...
I'm not going to be weak
on this, Pearl.
I know.
Can't allow my son
to be corrupt.
You're right.
Now let's just go to bed.
I'll take him to school in the morning.
- All right?
- All right.
I will be honest with you, boys.
I'm not well.
I'm not well at all
this morning.
I'm sure sorry
to hear that, sir.
But you look well than me.
Don't he look well?
Yes, sir.
You look really good.
Now we've got some white fellows
from up north coming to our town.
These turn up trouble between
our coloreds and our whites.
They say that we need
to make a union.
The sharecroppers and the workers,
all together colored and white.
They need make a union?
How do you boys feel about that?
I don't know sir. I really
don't know much about that.
It's a bad idea.
It's bad idea. Take my word for it.
Yes, sir.
And they said that there was some kind of secret
meeting last night down near the lake.
Now, do you boys know about that?
No, sir.
You don't know about that?
- Samuel?
- No, sir.
- You didn't hear about that?
- No, sir.
- You swear to me?
- Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I swear.
All right, then.
See you later.
Our first debate...
...is one week from today.
PAUL QUINN
- One week?
- That's right.
I thought Prairie View is first.
Prairie View is tough, so I thought
we're needed to warm up.
With the best negro college
in the State?
That's right, Mr. Burgess.
Is that frighten you?
Yes, sir.
One week is not enough time
to write our arguments.
You do the research,
I write the arguments.
Wait. You?
You write the arguments?
And you deliver them, Mr. Lowe.
What the hell do I look like,
a mailman?
Hell is where you're headed
if you question me again.
In theory you look like a student.
So what you're saying is
I'm not capable?
Is not a matter of competence
it's a matter of experience.
- How do I know you...?
- I write the arguments.
That's the way has been,
that's the way is going to be.
Any more questions?
One week.
I'm bringing to you our first
affirmative debater...
From Paul Quinn College:
Oquery Hobert.
Resolved.
Unemployment's relief should be ended,
When the depression ends.
If the depression ends.
I've traveled back through
the history to 1536,
when the first followers of
England were mandate.
In those days the dole or
welfare as we call it.
Was founded by voluntary contributions.
But as time passed...
...the English devised
the allowed system.
The first unemployment relief.
Only now it was paid but involuntary contributions.
More commonly known as taxes.
The allowed system was a disaster.
Don't need real unemployment relief
as to give a man a job.
But to do that you have to
give economy life.
Not tax it to death.
When capitalism was young
the old puritanical concept
to duty was:
He who does not work so not eat.
And that made sense when it was
more work than men willing to do it.
But those days are gone.
Now there are many who want to work,
but find themselves standing in breadlines.
Now should they not eat?
Because there are no jobs?
People, today we need
a new concept to duty.
The right of the individual
to demand from society
is just as much as he
gives to society.
We clutch on anything
that even looks like a solution.
for public relief.
Pay it out if it'll sweep
the hobos off the streets.
One seventh of the population
of the US are on welfare.
Fine, as long as it
ends our misery.
A nation as desperate as this...
...is a danger to itself.
Once, a Roman general brought
peace to a rebellious province...
...by killing all its citizens.
Even the stalled Romans were shocked.
One of them wrote:
"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant".
Which means they create
desolation and call it peace.
Now for all their facts and figures the
Paul Quinn debaters would also create desolation
And call it peace.
They would allow the unemployed to die
so the economy can live.
A brilliant young woman
I know was asked once
to support her argument in favor
social welfare.
She named the most
powerful source imaginable.
The look in a mother's face
when she can not feed her children.
Can you look that hungry child
in the eyes?
See the blood on his feet from walking
barefoot in the cotton fields?
Or do you ask his baby sister
with the belly swollen from hunger,
she cares about her daddy's
work ethic?!
He is good.
Wiley! Wiley!
The only thing that matters that
big fish and little fish,
and the color of the fish
does not count.
WON 2.
LOST 0.
If in the state of Missisipi was turned a head
each and every time a negro was lynched.
You've seen the Federal
Government intervene?
WON 3. LOST 0.
Wiley! Wiley!
WON 6.
LOST 0.
And the winner is...
/Fisk University/
Wiley College.
WON 8.
LOST 0.
WON: Infinity.
WILEY COLLEGE DEBATERS
NEW CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS
That's right captain,
I think I've got the ring leader.
All right, if that's what you want.
Yes, okey-dokey then.
Bye-bye.
- Shit.
- Who was that?
Captain Wainwright.
Texas Rangers?
He wants me to hold off
on picking this fellow up,
until him and his boys get up here.
Shit.
He wants to get his picture on paper.
Yeah. We do all of the work
and they get all of the glory.
I guess that's the way the world is.
Am I right Samuel?
I've an announcement to make.
Excuse me.
Recently I
- ahm, we -
Sent some letters to
some major universities.
Told them all about us, our team,
what we've been doing,
And yesterday we've got response.
From Oklahoma City University.
- Are they a...?
- Anglo-Saxons, yes.
We'll be the first negro college in America,
Well, one of the first negro
colleges in America,
To have a debate in
a white college.
All right.
University of Oklahoma.
Not University of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma City University.
The debate will take place at
an out-campus site.
Wait. At out-campus site? Why?
Because sometimes, Mr. Lowe you have to
take things one step at a time.
So what you're saying is that
the crackers in Oklahoma...
...ain't gonna allow us in the campus?
No, what I'm saying is that you have to
take things one step at a time.
- This is a great opportunity.
- Thank you very much.
A great opportunity? The master just is gonna
give us a crumb out of his plate.
What?
I think Lowe here is afraid.
What am I afraid of, James?
I think you're afraid to debate white people.
- Anglo-Saxons.
- Anglo-Saxons.
- Thank you very much.
- Mr. Tolson let me debate.
I mean I'll debate Anglo-Saxons anywhere.
In a dark alley with no light...
...with a candle, and the people
chasing you down with guns.
Now. I'll debate
Anglo-Saxons anywhere.
- I ain't afraid.
- I am.
Mr. Tolson when I came here today.
I saw the Sheriff outside
watching your house.
What's going on?
Maybe you should
ask the Sheriff.
I've been hearing a lot of rumours
about what you're doing.
My dad just called Dean last week.
And asked what is a communist doing and
teaching at a good Methodist College.
My polics are my business, Mr. Burgees
and I promise you that
it will not endanger the team.
But, sir. It is being endangered.
I came to Wiley College to be
educated not investigated.
- I understand.
- I don't wanna be dragged in anything.
If my parents...
I'm sorry.
Mr. Tolson, please. Just tell me
you're not a communist. Otherwise...
Otherwise what?
Otherwise what?
My father said I have to quit.
- Nobody wants that.
- Then tell me.
As I said, my polics are my business.
I guess I have to resign.
Mrs. Tolson, thank you for
the wonderful dinner.
You're welcome, Hamilton.
Good luck in Oklahoma.
I know you'll win.
All right. Well...
If anybody else wants to quit, I'll understand.
MOUNT SINAI.
Resolved: The negroes should be...
...should be admitted...
I can't hear you!
Louder!
Resolved:
Negroes...
...should be admitted...
...to state universities.
My partner and I will prove that...
...blocking a negroe's admission...
...to a state university
is not only wrong,
It is absurd.
The negro people are not
just the color in the American fabric.
They are the thread that
holds that all together.
Consider the legal and historical record.
May 13, 1865,
sergeant Crocker, a negro...
...is the last soldier to
die in the Civil War.
In 1918 the first
US soldiers...
...decorated for bravery in France...
...are negroes Henry
Johnson and Nedham Roberts.
announces that the "n" in "negro"...
...would hereafter be capitalize.
To force upon south what
they are not ready for,
would result in nothing
but more racial hatred.
Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, he is perhaps
the most eminent negro scholar in America,
He comments:
/"It's a silly waste of money...
/...time and temper...
/...to try to pelt a powerful majority to do...
/...what they're determined
to not to do."
My opponent so conveniently
chose to ignore the fact,
That W. E. B. Du Bois
is the first negro who receved a PhD,
From a white college
called Harvard.
Dr. Du Bois, he adds:
/"It is impossible,
/"Impossible for a negro
to receive a proper education...
/...at a white college."
The most eminent negro
scholar in America...
...is the product of the
United League education.
You see, Du Bois knows all too well the
white man's resistance to change.
But that's no reason to keep a
black man out of any college.
If someone didn't force upon
the south something it wasn't ready for,
I'd still be in chain, and Miss Booke
here'd be running from out of an asset.
I do admit it.
It is true.
Far too many whites are afflicted
with the disease of racial hatred.
And because of racism it would
be impossible for a negro to be happy...
...in a southern white college today.
And if someone is unhappy...
...it is impossible to see how they could
receive a proper education.
Yes, the time will come when negroes
and whites would walk on the same campus.
And we will share the same classrooms.
But sadly that day is not today.
As long as schools are segregated...
...negroes will receive
an education that is both...
...separate and unequal.
By Oklahoma is on reckoning...
...the state is currently spending
...for the education of a white child...
...than in the spending to
educate a colored child.
That means better textbooks
for that child than for that child.
I say that's a shame.
But my opponent says
today is not the day...
...for whites and coloreds
to go the same college.
To share the same campus.
To walk in the same classroom.
Well, would you be so kind to tell me
when is that day gonna come?
Is it gonna come tomorrow?
Is it gonna come next week?
In 100 years?
Never?
No! The time for justice, the time
for freedom and the time for equality...
Is always, is always right now!
Thank you.
What is this?
I told you is holy wine,
but hairy in the chest.
- If you say so.
- Good, ain't?
You will bat on me as if you'll need it.
And my weapon were words.
I don't need a gun,
I don't need a knife, you see...
Meet me outside in 5 minutes.
And then what?
Honey, nobody knows that better
than you know. I'm fine.
- How are you doing, Pearl?
- Pearl.
How do you do, I'm just like you.
And where's your husband?
He is in the study.
- Dr. Farmer.
- Congratulations Melvin.
- Thank you.
- You put us on the map.
Well, your son is doing great job,
his researching is impeccable.
That's good to hear, good to hear.
Listen.
There're people around town who aren't
very happy with your off-campus activities.
They're calling you a radical.
In fact I wouldn't be a bit suprised
to find out,
When in the mornin' when I woke up
that you're strung up to a tree.
They have to catch me first.
This is serious, Melvin. Very serious.
A hungry negro steals
a chicken and he goes to jail.
A rich businessman steals barns,
he goes to Congress.
I think that's wrong.
And that makes me radical,
a socialist, a communist...
Amen.
Amen on that.
- Jesus was radical.
- Careful.
- Yes, he was, Jesus was radical.
- Careful.
Mental institutions are filled with people
who confuse themselves with Jesus Christ.
You confess to Jesus Christ now?
You confess to Jesus Christ?
You know what words do.
- Come on now.
- Amen.
Don't wanna confuse yourself
with Jesus Christ.
No, I am not confused, I'm convinced.
I'm not judging you.
I'm just concerned about your methods.
What methods?
James was there that night, wasn't he?
He was not with me.
- Is he involved in this?
- Of course not, James.
I've done everything in my power
to keep him out of this.
To keep him out? What? Does he want to be involved?
You tell me he wants to involved?
No, he doesn't. Maybe this is something
you should discuss with him.
I'm discussing here with you right now and
I don't feel like I'm getting the straight answer from you.
No, you're getting a straight answer...
I think that you were
there with him that night.
- He was not with me.
- He is a 14 years old boy.
I understand that, James.
And I'll do whatever I have to do to
protect him, you understand that?
Do anybody thirsty?
- Thank you, thank you.
- You're welcome.
- Ruth, this is a fine party.
- Thank you.
I think it's time for some
sweet potato pie.
- Please.
- I help you with that.
Not the time to talk about it.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
It's so beautiful out here.
Yeah.
I was born near here,
up by the lake Jefferson.
I come here since I was a little boy.
Your parents still live around here?
No, they're gone.
My grandparents raised me.
My papa here spent his live building
levels around here, for free of course.
He was a slave?
My grandma was always
telling me that,
Be good or else the Confederates
will rise up
out of the Marshall cemetery,
and get me.
What?
I've just never seen this
side of you before.
What side?
You seem so calm, so peaceful.
I think the lake does it to me.
I am happy when I'm up here, you know?
It's funny...
A part of me wants just to
stay out here by the lake, you know.
To read books all day,
hunt or fish when I get hungry.
And the other part want to go
everywhere and see everything.
I want to go to New Orleans,
and New York, and Chicago,
...and even San Francisco.
So I wanna go...
walking down the road...
...and disappear.
Maybe you can take me with you.
- Come, over.
- What?
The schoolband is playing
in the outside.
What? Oh my Jesus!
I thought you said that
nobody ever comes here.
Nobody ever does come here, Samantha.
Hold on, hold on.
Henry, come on!
Henry!
Get dressed.
What's going on?
We gonna go get Mr. Tolson and
Samantha head back to the campus
And have a paper hour.
Come on, get dressed.
You know, you go get Tolson and I
meet up you a bit later on campus.
Come on, Lowe. You know
it's gonna be fun...
I guess I tell them you're gonna join us later.
He's gonna join us later.
/Just has to clean his house,
that's all.
Great news, great news,
great news!
My phone has been ringing off the hook.
University of Michigan wants to
debate us.
So does SMU (Southern Methodist
University), so does Georgia.
Where is Mr. Lowe?
When do I get to debate?
Sooner than you think, James.
Sooner than you think.
When?
When you're ready.
I am ready now.
Mr. Tolson, I do not mind if James...
What's wrong?
Maybe I'm tired of this.
Of what?
Of watching another people debate.
When am I get a chance to prove myself?
You are the best researcher, James.
We could not do this without you.
You do plenty without me.
Excuse me.
- James.
- What?
James, you wait.
It was so mean what you said in there.
I don't wanna lose your friendship...
How can you lose
something that you've never had?
You were never my friend?
Maybe I don't wanna just
be your friend.
Maybe it hurts me to be your friend.
Get stringed.
Mr. Tolson!
Where is he?
- Calm down, Henry.
- Have you seen him?
No, they don't let us.
- Ain't did unto you, did they?
- No, we're fine.
Good day.
I am dr. James Farmer, Wiley College.
This is William Taylor,
Mr. Tolson attorney.
- And this is his wife, Ruth.
- Hello.
I'd like to see my client, please.
William.
- Sir Dozier, dr James Farmer, this is...
- Hello William.
How are you doing today?
- Fine, sir. And you?
- Not too bad, not too bad.
Me and William we go a way back.
I knew William when I was a boy.
Could I see my client
now, sheriff?
Your client?
The fact of the business is, William
that your client is kind of busy right now.
Busy doing what?
Sheriff, sheriff.
It's a situation...
- Get some boys out there.
- Right. Men!
Let him go, let him go...
Let him go! Let him go!
- They're with you?
- That's right.
See, this is what happens to a town
when you let the unions in...
...starts trouble.
People get all wild up about nothing.
One of us is liable to get hurt.
If you catch my drift.
Sheriff, it is clear
that you have not evidence,
To arrest Mr. Tolson.
So I suggest you let him go.
You suggest it? Who the hell are you?
Couple months ago...
...there was a raid on the floor
of Tilmuch barn.
It was a peaceful and lawful
gathering of sharecroppers,
Who were brutally attacked by a
gang of violent vigilants.
Now witnesses say that
you were there.
If you led that raid, Sheriff,
You're the one who
broke the law. Not Tolson.
Are you threatening me, boy?
No, sir.
I wouldn't do that.
But I can not speak for
those people outside.
An unjust law is
no law at all.
What does that mean?
A mass-slaughter of citizens.
Both white and colored...
by Texas Rangers.
It's that really what you want
as a Sheriff of this county?
Now if you'd let Tolson go home,
I believe, I believe these folks outside...
...they go home as well.
- That pig wasn't worth 25 dollars.
- What?
You owe my father some money.
Have a seat, Mr. Farmer.
Oh, Lord...
SMU (Southern Methodist University)
has canceled.
University of Georgia sounds
like they will follow soon.
Why?
I've been blacklisted.
They're talking about censoring me,
Dean claiming the board have asked me to...
Stop working with
sharecroppers or else,
They say that is not my fight.
So...
Things are bad.
My academic career is in jeopardy,
My debate team has nowhere to go.
Anyone know who Antaeus was?
Sure, he was a gigantic wrestler
in Greek mythology.
His mother was Gaia, the Goddess of Earth, and...
I mean he was unbeatable,
because any time he was thrown down
to the Earth that would make him stronger.
That's correct, it would
make him stronger.
Defeat would make him stronger.
You are my students,
I am your teacher.
I think that is a sacred trust.
So what do I say to you now?
Quit?
Because the Dean says so?
Because the Sheriff says so?
Because the Texas Rangers says so?
No!
I am diametrically oppose to that.
My message to you is to never quit.
We are not quiting.
Good.
What do you wanna us to do?
- Debate Harvard.
- Harvard?
Harvard University. They're the
reigning national champions.
If we defeat them,
we defeat the best.
Mr.Tolson, sir!
With the whole lotta respect.
Harvard ain't gonna debate us.
Not a little Wiley College
in Marshall, Texas.
They know who we are, Henry.
I've been writing them letters,
sending them articles...
But how do we get them
letter back?
By continuing to win.
Dr. Farmer has informed me,
that Howard University...
is gonna be in Prairie View next week.
We annihilated Fisk (Univ.)
If we eliminate Howard...
...we will have beaten the two
best negro colleges in Amierica.
I can guarantee you that I will see
to it that Harvard does not ignore that.
All right?
Yes.
- Look forward on that, you don't see on that?
- I've been looking all the time.
- Prairie View, Texas. 127.
- You show me where I look, 'cause it's not on.
- It's not there.
- Is there, you just can't find it.
I see 2 and I see 7.
Right, now look for 1 in front
of this and you get it.
After 126,
Before 128.
I really don't think...
Where you get this map?
What are you doing?
I'll come down.
Back in the car, shut the door.
Nobody move.
Get down, get down.
Get down, too.
There is a negro in that car.
Come on, let's pick it.
All right. Everybody
sit tight and...
...I'll get the keys.
- How you doing, Mrs. Baker?
- I am fine.
- Are you all right?
- Yes, M'am.
- Nice if you come in.
- Thank you.
Henry.
Henry!
Henry!
Hi baby, how you doing?
Still waiting for me?
What's the matter baby?
Come on.
Baby!
Samantha!
Shut up, let's go.
- Where?
- Shut up, let's go.
- Where we going?
- Next room.
Got him, Mr. Tolson.
Ok, sit...
Come here.
Give me a hug.
Stop.
/...what I see, great big nigger hanging on the tree...
You're worthless...
What?
You think you are the only one hurt?
Ok, I'm sorry...
For everything...
For drinking...
I apologise.
I'm not talking about me.
You're right.
I'm gonna talk to her.
No, no. You won't allowed.
She doesn't need to see you like this.
No, is ok.
I'm just gonna talk to her...
Can you leave me alone?
Calm down, boy. Stop.
Stop. I am not playing with you.
Calm down.
You're crazy?
You're never gon' forgot what
you saw up there, you understand?
You're never gon' forgot what
you saw up there.
Can hang and they easy tore off you sometimes
sometimes they cut all of your fingers off,
Your toes, your nose, your ears.
Sometimes they cut your coverts off.
Sometimes they skin you alive.
You'll never be able to forget.
What do you think he did?
He did not have to do nothing
James, he did not have to do nothing.
In Texas, they lynch negroes.
Do you understand?
So it doesn't matter how good
we are, doesn't?
What do you talk? What?
This is all useless.
What are you talking about?
We're just a bunch of negroes debating
each other on subjects we all agree on.
James, don't talk like that.
All right?
- Why not?
- Because you can't.
Not you.
Bye. God bless.
Where is Samantha?
She's not going with us.
Why not?
What do you think?
I took her to the bus-station.
She wanted to go back to school.
You wanted your chance?
This is it.
How can any negro...
...defend the punishment of prison...
When he sees so much
oppression in his own life?
How?
Because crime itself
is a form of oppression.
And negroes fall victim
to more violent crime,
than any other race in America.
For us...
Prison not only offers
protection, but retribution.
Yes, it is.
And for the criminal...
It is a dark gift...
The hardship that
introduces a man to himself...
That rouses his
passion for freedom...
His hope for redemption.
Our next debater from
Wiley College,
Mr. James Farmer Junior.
Mr. Farmer.
Mum.
Mum.
Honey!
Hi!
So...
We lost.
I'm sorry.
This came...
Harvard?
Who sent this?
- Go on, open it! And read it.
- It seems that someone opened it already.
Not me.
- You didn't open it already?
- No.
You are not a good liar.
Out loud!
Dear Mr. Tolson.
Thank you for informing us...
about your historical victory
over Oklahoma City.
I'm sure you realize
our season is nearly over,
but today we received another
letter from Wiley College,
written by Mr. Henry Lowe.
with an "e".
He told us from his student's
prospective about your...
...about your undefeated season.
- Well, we are not undefeted any more.
- Doesn't matter.
We wish to extend
an invitation to...
We wish to extend invitation to
debate Harvard Crimson,
Here in Cambridge.
Let us know if this is agreeable to you.
- Don't tell anybody.
- No.
You don't have to thank me.
- I just wanted to show you I could write too.
- Yes, good. Thank you.
You could do me a favor.
What's that?
Keep Samantha on the team...
Why I wanna do that?
Mr. Tolson it was a rough night.
Yes it was, Mr. Lowe.
For all of us.
And she walked out on us
at the last minute.
No, sir. She did not walk out on us.
She walked out on me.
It's a good tea.
Resolved:
Capitalism is a immoral.
You will be arguing the affirmative.
To a bunch of Wall Street bankers.
Mr. Tolson, I owe you and my teammates...
You're late, come in, sit down.
Samantha, I am not...
Resolved.
You've got macaroni cheese, fried chicken,
black peas for good luck,
red beans and rice, corn-bread, candy canes,
I put some peach cutlet in there too.
And red pudding too. I know that you don't
like pudding but I put it anyway.
Thank you, mom.
Good luck, son.
Dad...
Yes, Junior.
You get bolster by regards, yeah?
Yes sir.
Come on, train's leaving.
Coming.
- Bye mom.
- Bye bye.
I love you.
We love you, too.
All aboard.
- I'm not going with you.
- What?
I can not leave the state.
It's a condition of my bail.
You can't let them stop you.
They're not stopping me.
I just don't wanna jeopardize
your opportunity.
You did want without me, this is what
you wanted to do all along. Isn't it?
It's right.
Why didn't you tell us before?
Because I didn't want to hear your arguments.
I knew they'd be too good.
All right, Mr. Lowe.
You are in charge.
Whatever your instinct will tell you,
you listen.
- Yes, sir.
- Let's go.
What we supposed to do without you?
Win.
I thought someone supposed to meet us.
- Wiley College?
- Yes.
I'm Harland Osbourne. Harvard has put me
in charge for the time you are here in Boston.
- Hi, I am Henry Lowe.
- Mr. Lowe.
- James Farmer Junior.
- Mr. Farmer.
- Samantha Booke.
- Of course, Miss Booke.
We should be going.
My car is up front.
- I've got it.
- Thank you.
Just so you know we're staying
on campus in Douglas Hall.
I got to tell you, this debate
is stiring up a lot of excitement.
- Really?
- Oh yeah.
It's gonna be broadcast all over America.
- Can we see where we gonna debate?
- Of course.
Hello, Harvard.
Excuse me.
You suppose to be here?
I guess we'll find out. Won't we?
Look, Mr. Farmer.
Lowe, I've got 5 dollars.
Yes, I did, too. It's called "per diem".
- Want me to hold it for you?
- No, not my 5 dollars.
I've got 5 dollars. I've got 5 dollars.
Yeah, me too.
Well, mine is crisp.
James, this is high tea, all right?
We nibble, we do not devour.
How do you know?
I don't.
Hello, I'm Wilson.
This is for you.
Thank you.
I can't accept that, sir.
It would be inappropriate.
"To be inappropriate".
- Who this wrote?
- From Harvard.
Maybe it's more money.
We have been informed,
by Tau Kappa Gamma that your team delivers...
Canned speaches...
Arguments written by
faculty rather then students.
Therefore we are changing the topic.
You have the same amount of time
To write new arguments as the Harvard team.
Coaches helped
students all the time.
Yes, sir.
Both teams will be delivered
the same reference books.
A new topic: "Resolved: Civil disobedience
is a moral weapon to fight for justice."
Wiley College will
be arguing the affirmative.
Thank you, sir.
I can't reach Mr. Tolson.
Nobody knows where he is.
He sent us up to loose.
We can't win without him.
You're wrong.
We can't win without him.
Thoreau?
Here is your coffee, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Just Wilson.
Thank you, Wilson.
- Well, you have to use the mass...
- But is that...
Agreed, James. But we'll save it for
the red button. We gonna save the best for last.
Because you have to...
You have to lead the audience...
I think we should include this
Ghandi concept with Satyagraha...
I don't agree. I don't think people can
understand Satyagarha... or Such a gar...
Satyagraha. From the Sanskrit,
meaning truth and fairness.
I told you.
It's obvious to me that we should
begin debate with Ghandi.
That's exactly what
I won't do it.
Why should I do the obvious thing?
Because that's what wins debate.
Listen to what you're saying.
This is Harvard, ok?
The first thing you think when you say
"disobedience"...What's the first thing?
That's why we chose Ghandhi!
He's a strong poet.
I wanna win.
Do you wanna win?
Yes, I wanna win.
This is not getting us the way out.
Tolson told me I was in charge.
Ain't put you in charge.
He put me in charge,
so I make the decision.
We will not starting with Ghandi.
You act like a kid!
- You are a kid.
- You are an idiot.
- Am I an idiot?
- Yes, you are an idiot.
To hell with you,
to hell with this debate.
To hell with me?
Just because I've just leaved you?
Crazy, you!
- He's coming back, isn't he?
- See if I care.
You're beautiful when you sleep.
Yes, I know, I know...
But she ain't stop me from looking at you.
Shut up and go to bed.
James, come on, wake up.
No.
James...
Come on James, get up.
What?
What is this?
That's my notes.
Why are you giving on to me for?
Because you're debating, not me.
What?
It's your turn, James.
You're serious?
- You're crazy.
- 14 is just as good as me.
Judges will love you.
No, you can't quit.
I'm not quitting Samantha.
Tolson made me captain,
and I said that you are ready.
You saw me at Howard,
it was horrible.
That's right. You did it horrible, didn't you?
Stuck-up the whole joint. Right?
So she just quit, right?
She just give up?
No.
Who is the judge?
What?
Who is the judge?
Judge is God.
And why is he God?
Because he decides who wins or
loses, not my opponent.
Who is your opponent?
He doesn't exist.
Why doesn't he exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
That's right. Speak the truth!
/Direct from Harvard, Memorial Hall
/in Cambridge Massachusetts,
/This is the WNBC Radio, bringing
/to you live tonight's history, making debate...
/Between little Wiley College,
/from Marshall Texas,
/And the Harvard University
/debate team.
/The first time ever a negro college
/has faced the national champions.
/Harvard's Dean and students are making
their ways to the podium now.
/The crowd as if were cued fall silent.
/On this historical occasion...
/We welcome the distinguished
/team from Wiley College,
/the illustrious judges, you, the audience,
/and through the wonder of radio, the nation.
Harvard University celebrates
its 300th anniversary this year.
And in Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
its 5th President of the US.
/But no University, no matter how
grand or august in its history
/Can't afford to live in the past,
/So in the spirit of tomorrow...
/I introduce to you today...
The debaters from Wiley College,
Miss Samantha Booke
Mr. James Farmer Junior.
What?
Mr. Farmer will argue
the first affirmative.
Resolved:
Civil disobedience is a moral weapon
in the fight for justice.
But how can disobedience ever be moral?
I guess that's depend on one's
definition of the words.
Word.
In 1919 in India, 10,000 people
gathered in Amritsar...
to protest the tyranny
of British rule.
Has it started?
Your brother's talking, just sit down.
/General Reginald Dyer,
/traped them in a courtyard,
And ordered his troops to fire
into the crowd for 10 minutes.
/Men, women, children,
/shot down in cold blood.
Dyer said he taught
them a moral lesson.
Ghandhi and his followers
responded not with violence,
But with organised campaign
of non-cooperation.
/Government buildings were occupied,
/Streets were blocked by people
/who refused to rise.
/Even being beaten by police.
Ghandhi was arrested.
But the British were
soon forced to release him.
He called it "a moral victory".
The definition of moral:
Dyer's lesson,
or Ghandi's victory?
You choose.
From 1914 to 1918,
For every single minute the world was at war.
Just think of it.
Were hurled into eternity
every hour of every day,
Of every night for 4 long years.
Here was a slaughter immeasurable
greater that what happened in Amritsar.
Can be anything moral about it?
Nothing.
Except that it stopped Germany
from enslaving all of Europe.
Civil disobedience isn't
moral because it's non-violent.
Fighting for your country
with violence can be deeply moral.
Demanding the greatest sacrifice of all.
Life itself.
Non-violence, is the mask
civil disobedience wears
to conceal it's true face.
Anarchy.
/Ghandhi believes one must always act
/With love and respect for ones opponents.
/Even if they are Harvard debaters.
/Ghandhi also believes that
law-breakers...
Must accept the legal consequences
for their actions.
Does it sound like anarchy?
Civil disobedience is not
something for us to fear.
It is after all
an American concept.
You see, Ghandhi draws his inspiration
not from a Hindu Scripture,
But from Henry David Thoreau who I believe
graduated from Harvard,
And lived by upon not
too far from here.
My opponent is right about one thing.
Thoreau was a Harvard grade,
And like many of us,
A bit self-righteous.
He once said:
/"Any man more right
than his neighbors...
/...constitutes a majority of one."
Thoreau, the idealist, could never know,
That Adolf Hitler would
agree with his words.
The beauty and burden of
democracy is this:
"No idea prevails without
the support of the majority".
The people decide the
moral issues of the day,
Not a majority of one.
Majorities do not decide
what is right or wrong.
Your conscience does.
So why should us citizens
surrender his the whole conscience
/To a legacy.
/We must never, ever kneel down...
Before the tyranny of a majority.
We can't decide which laws
to obey, which to ignore.
If we could, I'd never
stop for a red light.
My father is one of those men
that stand between us and chaos.
A police officer.
I remember the day his partner,
/His best friend...
/Was gunned down in the line of duty.
Most vividly of all, I remember
the expression on my dads face.
Nothing...
That erodes the rule of law
can be moral.
No matter what name we give it.
Why doesn't he say something?
In Texas...
...they lynch negroes.
My teammate and I...
Saw a man strung by his neck.
and set on fire.
We drove to a lynch mob.
We pressed our faces
against the floor board.
I looked at my teammates.
I saw the fear in their eyes.
And worse, the shame.
What was this negro's crime?
That he should be hung without trial
in a dark forest filled with fog.
Was he a thief?
Was he a killer?
Or just a negro?
Was he a sharecropper?
A preacher?
Were his children waiting up for him?
And who are we to just lie there
And do nothing.
No matter what he did,
the mob was the criminal.
But the law did nothing,
Just left us wondering: Why?
My opponent says:
"Nothing that erodes the rule of law
can be moral."
But there is no rule of law in
the Jim Crow South.
Not, when negroes
are denied to housing,
turned away from schools,
hospitals,
And not,
when we are lynched.
St. Augustine said:
"An unjust law is no law at all."
Which means I have a right,
even a duty to resist.
With violence or civil disobedience...
You should pray
I choose the latter.
/In tonight debate...
/Between Harvard University,
/And Wiley College.
And the winner is...
Wiley College.
Just 7 years later in
founded the Congress of Racial Equality.
And became a leader in the
civil rights movement.
After a long life
of teaching and writing.
James Farmer Sr. passed away in 1961.
on the day before
Samantha Booke, a lawyer,
took the first Freedom Ride to Alabama.
Henry Lowe went on study theology
at the University of California.
and became a minister.
Melvin Tolson became a
world renowned poet.
He continued his work with
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.
By the end of 1936, it had
For ten years the Wiley College
debate team went undefeated.
Heavenly Father, we come before Thee,
knee-bent and body-bowed,
in the humblest way that we know how.
Father who controls and knows all things:
Both the living and dying of all creatures.
Give us strength and
wisdom to do Thy work.
In God's name we pray.
Let all Gods people say:
Amen.
When I was slippin' up, she looked down,
saw the head of something...
...was right there in
her hands.
She told me was a wild animal.
I say then it was Gods revenge.
You go heathen, Henry.
You know what I've got right here?
What?
Something very wild
/"When I was a child, I spake as a child,
/I understood as a child,
/I thought as a child.
/But when I became a man,
/I put away all childish things."
(1Cor 13:11. KJV)
/Freshman Class,
/I believe we are the most
/privileged people in America.
/Because we have the
/most important job...
/in America.
/The education of our young people.
Trudell!
Who the hell is he?
Just my husband.
I'm gonna cut your head off.
/We must impress upon our young people.
/That there will be
/difficulties that they face.
You're scared, ain't you?
You do raise
and twice my size?
/They must defeat them.
/They must do what
/they have to do...
/...in order to do what they want to do.
/Education is the only way out.
Get up, get up, baby, come on.
/The way out of ignorance.
Like cut people? Home boy?
Want to cut people, Trudell, uhm?
Get your hands off me!
The way out of darkness
Into the glorious light.
WHITES Only
Come on, give me back,
come on, give me back.
- "To precious Hamilton."
- This is not fun.
Give me back.
Have a seat.
/I am...
/...the darker brother.
/They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
/But I laugh, and eat well,
and grow strong.
/Tomorrow I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
/Nobody'll dare say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen", then.
/Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am
/And be ashamed, --
/I, too, am America.
(I, Too)
Who wrote that?
Langston Hughes, 1924.
/Hating you shall be a game...
/played with cool hands...
bR E V O L U T I O N/b
/Memory will lay its hands...
/upon your breast.
/And you will understand my hatred.
(Hatred)
Gwendolyn Bennett wrote that.
She was born in 1902.
Unofficially.
You see in most states...
negroes were denied
birth certificate.
which means I can lie about my
age for the rest of my life.
You think that's funny?
To be born without record.
Mr. Reed, hand this up.
I'm going to introduce you
to some new voices this semester
There is revolution going on in the north.
In Harlem, they're changing the way...
negroes in America think.
I am talking about poets like
Hughes, Bennett,
Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen.
/Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
with the stars strung for a rattle.
/I cut my teeth as the black raccoon...
/...for implements of battle.
(C. Cullen: Saturday's Child)
Meet me after class.
What's a professor doing
in the middle of the night,
dressed like a corn-chopper?
What is a student doing
in the middle of the night, throwing his life away?
It's funny, I thought
I was defeating myself.
I remember you.
Couple years ago
but you disappeared.
What happened?
I come and go, whatever it suits me.
- Suspension?
- Leaves of absents.
Why did you come back?
School is the only place
where you can read all day.
Except prison.
I want you to come
by my house tonight 7:30.
Corner of Junho Campos.
Why would I do that?
Holding try-outs for
the debate team.
You're sure you want somebody like me?
No, that's why you're trying out.
/"...driven by the wind and tossed..."
(Eph 4:14)
Do well tonight, Junior.
/Of the 360 students here
/at Wiley College.
/Only 45 of you were
/brave enough...
/to try out for the debate team.
/Of that 45 only 4 be who'll remain
standing when the tryouts are over.
/Why? Because debate
/is blood sport.
It's combat, but your weapons are words.
Come on in. Now that Mr. Farmer
has joined us, we can begin.
Sit down, Mr. Farmer.
Not right there, over there.
James, come this way!
- Good evening Mrs. Tolson.
- Good evening.
- We're waiting for you Mr. Farmer.
- I'm going, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Farmer.
You smell very good, Mr. Farmer.
- Thank you, sir.
- You're very welcome.
Gentelmen and Lady!
This is the hot...
...spot.
You will enter it at your own risk.
Mr Tolson, what about debaters
from last year?
Don't ask a question you
already know the answer to.
Get up, you will be first.
You, right here in the hotspot.
Debate starts with a proposition,
with an idea, resolved.
Child labor should be regulated
by the Federal Goverment.
The first debater
argues the affirmative.
Affirmative means that you afford something.
Mr. Reed will argue affirmative,
the second debater argues the negative.
- Negative means that you are what?
- Against.
Brilliant, Mr. Burgess.
You shall argue the affirmative,
Mr. Reed, go.
Well, sir I begin with a quote
from the poet Cleghorn.
/"The golf links lie so near the mill...
/That almost every day
the laboring children can look out and...
/- And...
- And watch the man at play? (Sarah Cleghorn)
It that what you learned
from last year, Mr. Reed?
To start something and not finish it, is it?
- No sir.
- Sit down.
Who's next?
You, stand up, stand up.
Is getting late, how much longer can you hide?
I'm not hiding, sir.
I transfered from my college
just to come and try out of your team.
I am deeply moved.
What's your name?
- Samantha Booke.
- Booke?
- With an "e".
- Arise Miss Booke with an "e".
Into the hotspot
Miss Booke with an "e".
You know there's never been a female
on the debating team, ever?
Yes, sir. I know that.
What makes you think
you should be the first?
- Because I am just as qualified as...
- Withstanding Miss Booke.
-...anybody else. My gender has nothing...
- Resolved.
Welfare
discourages hard work.
- You're logging the negative.
- All right.
Walfare takes away a man
strongest reason for working...
Which is survival.
And that weakness the will of the poor.
How do you rebut that, Miss Booke with "e"?
I would say it does not.
Most of the new deal goes to
children anyway and to the handicapped...
- ...and to old people.
- Is it a fact or conjecture?
- It is a fact.
- Speak up.
- It is a fact.
- What's your source?
- The President.
- Of the United States?
Yes, sir.
That's your primary source?
You spoke to president
Roosevelt personally?
Of course not. I did not speak to him personally.
But I listen to his "Fire Side Chat".
- A radio broadcast?
- Yes.
Any other sources?
Any other sources?
Yes, there are other sources...
Like that looking at a mother's eyes
when she can't feed her kids.
Without welfare, Mr. Tolson,
people would be starving.
- Who is starving, Miss Booke?
- The unemployed are starving.
Mr. Burgess here, he is unemployed
obviously he's not starving.
I drew you in, Miss Booke.
You gave a faulty premise,
so your syllogism fell apart.
- Syllogism?
- Your logic fell apart.
Major premise,
the unemployed are starving.
Minor premise,
Mr. Burgess is unemployed.
Conclusion, Mr. Burgess
is starving.
Your major premise was
based on a faulty assumption.
Classic fallacy.
Who's next?
You were right.
- Tell us your name.
- I'm Henry Lowe with an "e".
All right, Mr. Lowe. I will name a subject,
you speak a few words
opportune quote from the literature.
Go ahead.
Beauty.
/"I heard the old, old men say
all that's beautiful drifts away...
/...like the waters."
(William Butler Yeats)
Very good.
History.
And name the author this time.
/"History is a nightmare
from which I'm trying to awake."
James Joyce.
Self-pity.
/"I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself."
D. H. Lawrence.
I love D. H. Lawrence,
have you ever read?
- Mr. Farmer.
- Yes, sir.
I have eyes on the back of my
head and ears on both sides.
Stand up.
Tell me the irony in the name
Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
Bethlehem is the bithplace
of Jesus, Prince of peace.
And Bethlehem Steel makes weapons of war.
Very good, sit down.
Good.
/Who's next?
Samantha.
Mr. Tolson, he is tough, isn't he?
Sure he is.
I'm James.
Is your father Dr. James Farmer?
Yes, he is.
I'm taking the eulogy from him and that
man speaks in tongues.
French, Greek, Hebrew, Latin.
How many languages does he speak?
- Seven languages.
- Seven languages.
He must be the smartest
man in Texas.
That's not saying much.
So why do you want
to be on the team?
I think, it would be a good training.
- For what?
- Being a lawyer.
Lawyer? It's great.
You know how many negro women
practise law in the state?
- Two.
- Exactly.
One it was a hot.
But look at you, Mr. Farmer,
how old are you anyway?
I'll be 16.
In 21 months.
Young lady, James!
I just want to thank you.
- For what?
- For your performance tonight.
I mean, how many other students
have a stand-up to Tolson?
- I did.
- No, you answered a question.
And I spout off few quotes.
Miss Brooke with an "e"...
- She fought back.
- And lost.
But you did't have to lose. Why isn't the
"Fire Side Chat" a legitimate source?
Because Tolson said so?
Nobody has better access to
those statistics than the President.
If you'd have called Tolson
on that, you'd have won.
I don't know. I'm sure that
he would be able to come up with something.
Goodnight, James!
Goodnight, Samantha.
Can you believe that he's 14
years old and he's in the college?
You are gifted, all of you.
But I want you to know that I chose
this team for balance.
And none of you should
take it as a failure.
As a denigration of your intellect.
Denigrate, that's the word for you.
From Latin word "Niger", to defame, to black.
Is always there, isn't it? Even in the dictionary.
Even in the speech of a negro professor.
Somehow black is always
acquainted with failure.
Well write in your own dictionary and
mark this as a new beginning.
Whether you make the team or not.
The Wiley College for Ransack
Society of 1935-36, is as follows.
The debaters will be...
Mr. Hamilton Burgess,
from last year's team.
Sit down, Mr. Burgess.
Mr. Henry Lowe.
Our alternates, Miss
Samantha Booke with an "e".
And finally...
Junior!
Slow down!
- Where is dad?
- Quiet, he's writing the lecture.
- Dad.
- Junior.
What is the greatest
weakness of man?
Not believing? Doubt?
That's it. Thank you Junior.
Matthew 14:31.
That will be the lesson.
Dad.
/"Oh, you of little faith
why do you doubt?"
- Dad.
- What is it, son?
I made the debate team.
Well, congratulations!
And who is on your team?
There is 4 of us,
I'm one of the alternates.
Who's ahead of you?
Hamilton Burgess and Henry Lowe.
And another alternate
is Samantha Booke.
- There's a girl?
- She wants to be a lawyer.
- Lawyer?
- She is very intelligent.
Is she pretty?
I don't know.
I've never really noticed.
Because extracurricular activities
like the debate team are fine.
But you must not take
the eye of the ball, son.
Yes, sir.
So, what do we do here?
We do we have to do,
so we can do we want to do.
- What do you have to do right now?
- My homework.
- Do get toward.
- Yes, sir.
My daddy owns grubs so there're as
apples, bananas, cookies,
donuts, eggs, figs and gonzolabic.
- Nice.
- What is a gonzolabic?
Hogwash, hogwash.
Ready, steady, go!
- Apricot.
- Oh, come on.
- Why no apricot?
Look out!
Who was there?
I'm not sure.
- Sit down!
- You stay put.
- What is it?
- It's pig.
Only pig.
Shut up, dog!
Junior get into the car.
- What the hell happened to my hog?
- Sorry about that.
Came out of nowhere I didn't see coming.
- You kill my hog, boy .
- I'm truly sorry. I gladly pay you for it.
How much? How much you want?
Some cost you 25 dollars.
Only have a few bucks on
right now but I can...
I do have a cheque.
My monthly cheque from
Wiley College in Marshall.
It's 17 dollars 36 cents.
You may have that,
and I would endorse that over to you.
You do what?
I will sign the cheque over to you.
- Well, let me see it.
- Is in the car with my wife.
Can I walk to the car now?
Junior, get in the car.
- Give me the salary cheque, Pearl.
- We need that money, James.
Just give me the cheque.
Come on.
I thought it was in here.
Relax. All right, you'll find.
Here is.
Here it is.
The cheque better be good, boy.
Is good.
Well, pick it up!
What the hell you think you're going?
You gotta help us
get this hog in my truck.
Come on, grab the tail in there, boy.
All right, on three.
Damned nigers a bit too good to
get the hands dirty.
- Dad.
- I told you to get in the car.
When I tell you to do something,
Junior, you do it.
- Who's the judge?
- The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who's your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Who is the judge?
- The judge is God.
- Louder!
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who
wins or loses not my opponent.
- Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
Speak the truth!
Speak the truth!
Yes, sir. I do like to talk.
Is that a virtue or a vice?
Well, I have to admit I've always
wanted to be the quiet mysterious type.
Only I can't keep my mouth ain't long enough.
Would you punch yourself
on a street fight, Mr. Burgess?
No, sir.
Then don't punch yourself
in a word fight.
You don't have to make
fun of yourself.
Use your humor against your opponent.
- Mr. Farmer.
- Yes sir.
Happy Mr. Farmer, tell us
one thing we don't know about your father.
- He is the first negro PhD.
- One thing we don't know about your father, Mr. Farmer.
He walked from Florida to Massachusetts
to go to College at Boston University.
He graduated magna cum laude.
Mr. Lowe.
Tell us about your father.
Why don't you tell us
something about your father?
I'm trying to get to know
each other, Mr. Lowe.
And I'm just trying to get to know you, Mr. Tolson.
I'm not the one on the debate team.
Are we not engaged
in the debate right now?
All right.
I'll take the affirmative.
Take the meanest, most restless nigger.
Strip him off his clothes
in front of the remaining male niggers,
female niggers and niggers infants.
Tar and feather him.
Tie each leg to a horse facing
in opposite direction,
Set him on fire and beat both horses,
until they tear him apart.
In front of the male,
female and nigger infants.
Both whip and beat the remaining
nigger males within an inch of their life.
Do not kill them.
But put the fear
of God in them.
For they can be useful
for future breeding.
Anybody know who Willy Lynch was?
Anybody? Raise your hand?
No one?
He was a vicious slave-owner in the West Indies.
The slave-masters in the
colony of Virginia were having trouble
"controlling" their slaves,
So they sent for Mr.
Lynch to teach them his methods.
The word "lynching" came from his last name.
His methods were very simple,
but they were diabolical.
Keep the slave physically strong,
But psychologically weak
and dependent on the slave master.
Keep the body, take the mind.
I...
...and any other
professor on this campus...
...are here to help you...
...to find, take back and keep...
...your righteous mind.
Because obviously you have lost it.
That is all you need
to know about me, Mr. Lowe.
Class dismissed.
- Wanna dance?
- Yes.
Come.
You're good dancer.
Thank you, I practice in my room.
Keep it.
- Excuse me, your punch.
- Thank you.
It's better I go to get
me some punch.
Here. Take my if you want.
It's good.
All right?
You know, I can take you to a place
where's real music, right?
- I'm not living here, Henry.
- Just for a spell. I'll bring you right back.
And what would my chaperone say?
You'll be back before she ever
knows you're gone.
What's the matter, you afraid?
What's the matter, you afraid?
Mr. Tolson.
Mr. Tolson!
And tell them the
sharecroppers are just wage them
So they don't have to slip
their farms on substitute
And that's why the Southern Tenant Farmers
Union want you to organize.
To make things right.
- Well, how? Strike?
- They'll be just bringing the mexicans.
We'll organise them too.
Yes, so they could shoot us all down,
white, colored and mexicans.
That is exactly what they
want you to believe.
The farmer boys
want you to believe that...
...they'll make war, but they won't.
They may be fools but they are
smart businessman.
And once we organize, they'll see,
Even guns can't stop us.
- They stopped them in Elaine.
- Why don't you talk about that?
About how they killed 100 colored
sharecroppers for trying to organize.
- That was 1919, friend.
- There was my dad and they gunned down, friend.
We're sorry about that.
But those men stood
alone, that's my point.
This is 1935.
We got the National Labor-
Relations Board,
- We've got the A. F. of L. (American Federation of Labor).
- You ain't got shit.
He ain't got shit.
Hey they come!
Hey they come!
Get the lights!
Everybody get down.
Come on. Let's go.
This way.
Come on.
All right.
What are doing out here?
I saw you. I was walking by your
house and I saw you dressed plainly.
I'm dressed like them, son. You think they'd
listen to me if I was wearing a tuxedo?
Listen to me!
Are you listening?
You can not tell anybody what
you saw tonight. You understand?
Not even my wife knows about this.
I won't tell anybody.
I promise.
I promise on Sacred Bible
I won't tell anybody.
Jesus...
Come on.
Junior...
Are you just gonna stay in there?
No, sir.
Sorry, I'm late.
You're sorry?
Is 1 o'clock in the morning.
I've been looking
everywhere for you.
I went to Mr. Tolson's
house after dance.
I thought you might have done that.
That's why I went over there.
I talked to Ruth. She said, Tolson was
gone and that you weren't there.
Son, I give you another chance.
Where were you?
- I can't tell you, sir.
- Good Lord, boy.
We've been worried to
death about you.
Junior, where were you?
- I can't tell you sir.
- Why not?
- I don't know.
- I don't know?
I don't know is not
an acceptable answer, Junior.
- Junior.
- Silence is not an option either.
- You've been drinking?
- Honey.
Because you must have been drinking,
coming up in my house...
...talking about you don't wanna
tell me where you've been at 1:30 in the morning.
- Come on baby, tell me what's the matter.
- Mum, nothing is the matter.
Now, something is the matter,
something is wrong.
Were you with that girl,
were you with that girl?
No.
Because you're 14 years old, Junior.
You've got plenty of time for girls later.
I wasn't with Samantha.
Junior.
Then where were you?
Where were you, honey?
You don't wanna talk?
Fine.
But you're not leaving this house.
- What do you mean?
- Just what I said.
You're not leaving this house
until you tell me the truth.
- What about school?
- Don't go question on what I just said, boy.
- Mum, what about school?
- And don't raise your voice!
I'm not raising my voice.
You're gonna raising your
voice in the house?
I am not raising my voice!
You do for me the job, pay all the wages?
Are you a man, now?
- I'm not not raising my voice!
- Just apologise!
I didn't say anything
what shall I apologise.
Like you apologized
that pig farmer?
What you said, boy?
You go to your room.
Junior...
I'm not going to be weak
on this, Pearl.
I know.
Can't allow my son
to be corrupt.
You're right.
Now let's just go to bed.
I'll take him to school in the morning.
- All right?
- All right.
I will be honest with you, boys.
I'm not well.
I'm not well at all
this morning.
I'm sure sorry
to hear that, sir.
But you look well than me.
Don't he look well?
Yes, sir.
You look really good.
Now we've got some white fellows
from up north coming to our town.
These turn up trouble between
our coloreds and our whites.
They say that we need
to make a union.
The sharecroppers and the workers,
all together colored and white.
They need make a union?
How do you boys feel about that?
I don't know sir. I really
don't know much about that.
It's a bad idea.
It's bad idea. Take my word for it.
Yes, sir.
And they said that there was some kind of secret
meeting last night down near the lake.
Now, do you boys know about that?
No, sir.
You don't know about that?
- Samuel?
- No, sir.
- You didn't hear about that?
- No, sir.
- You swear to me?
- Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I swear.
All right, then.
See you later.
Our first debate...
...is one week from today.
PAUL QUINN
- One week?
- That's right.
I thought Prairie View is first.
Prairie View is tough, so I thought
we're needed to warm up.
With the best negro college
in the State?
That's right, Mr. Burgess.
Is that frighten you?
Yes, sir.
One week is not enough time
to write our arguments.
You do the research,
I write the arguments.
Wait. You?
You write the arguments?
And you deliver them, Mr. Lowe.
What the hell do I look like,
a mailman?
Hell is where you're headed
if you question me again.
In theory you look like a student.
So what you're saying is
I'm not capable?
Is not a matter of competence
it's a matter of experience.
- How do I know you...?
- I write the arguments.
That's the way has been,
that's the way is going to be.
Any more questions?
One week.
I'm bringing to you our first
affirmative debater...
From Paul Quinn College:
Oquery Hobert.
Resolved.
Unemployment's relief should be ended,
When the depression ends.
If the depression ends.
I've traveled back through
the history to 1536,
when the first followers of
England were mandate.
In those days the dole or
welfare as we call it.
Was founded by voluntary contributions.
But as time passed...
...the English devised
the allowed system.
The first unemployment relief.
Only now it was paid but involuntary contributions.
More commonly known as taxes.
The allowed system was a disaster.
Don't need real unemployment relief
as to give a man a job.
But to do that you have to
give economy life.
Not tax it to death.
When capitalism was young
the old puritanical concept
to duty was:
He who does not work so not eat.
And that made sense when it was
more work than men willing to do it.
But those days are gone.
Now there are many who want to work,
but find themselves standing in breadlines.
Now should they not eat?
Because there are no jobs?
People, today we need
a new concept to duty.
The right of the individual
to demand from society
is just as much as he
gives to society.
We clutch on anything
that even looks like a solution.
for public relief.
Pay it out if it'll sweep
the hobos off the streets.
One seventh of the population
of the US are on welfare.
Fine, as long as it
ends our misery.
A nation as desperate as this...
...is a danger to itself.
Once, a Roman general brought
peace to a rebellious province...
...by killing all its citizens.
Even the stalled Romans were shocked.
One of them wrote:
"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant".
Which means they create
desolation and call it peace.
Now for all their facts and figures the
Paul Quinn debaters would also create desolation
And call it peace.
They would allow the unemployed to die
so the economy can live.
A brilliant young woman
I know was asked once
to support her argument in favor
social welfare.
She named the most
powerful source imaginable.
The look in a mother's face
when she can not feed her children.
Can you look that hungry child
in the eyes?
See the blood on his feet from walking
barefoot in the cotton fields?
Or do you ask his baby sister
with the belly swollen from hunger,
she cares about her daddy's
work ethic?!
He is good.
Wiley! Wiley!
The only thing that matters that
big fish and little fish,
and the color of the fish
does not count.
WON 2.
LOST 0.
If in the state of Missisipi was turned a head
each and every time a negro was lynched.
You've seen the Federal
Government intervene?
WON 3. LOST 0.
Wiley! Wiley!
WON 6.
LOST 0.
And the winner is...
/Fisk University/
Wiley College.
WON 8.
LOST 0.
WON: Infinity.
WILEY COLLEGE DEBATERS
NEW CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS
That's right captain,
I think I've got the ring leader.
All right, if that's what you want.
Yes, okey-dokey then.
Bye-bye.
- Shit.
- Who was that?
Captain Wainwright.
Texas Rangers?
He wants me to hold off
on picking this fellow up,
until him and his boys get up here.
Shit.
He wants to get his picture on paper.
Yeah. We do all of the work
and they get all of the glory.
I guess that's the way the world is.
Am I right Samuel?
I've an announcement to make.
Excuse me.
Recently I
- ahm, we -
Sent some letters to
some major universities.
Told them all about us, our team,
what we've been doing,
And yesterday we've got response.
From Oklahoma City University.
- Are they a...?
- Anglo-Saxons, yes.
We'll be the first negro college in America,
Well, one of the first negro
colleges in America,
To have a debate in
a white college.
All right.
University of Oklahoma.
Not University of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma City University.
The debate will take place at
an out-campus site.
Wait. At out-campus site? Why?
Because sometimes, Mr. Lowe you have to
take things one step at a time.
So what you're saying is that
the crackers in Oklahoma...
...ain't gonna allow us in the campus?
No, what I'm saying is that you have to
take things one step at a time.
- This is a great opportunity.
- Thank you very much.
A great opportunity? The master just is gonna
give us a crumb out of his plate.
What?
I think Lowe here is afraid.
What am I afraid of, James?
I think you're afraid to debate white people.
- Anglo-Saxons.
- Anglo-Saxons.
- Thank you very much.
- Mr. Tolson let me debate.
I mean I'll debate Anglo-Saxons anywhere.
In a dark alley with no light...
...with a candle, and the people
chasing you down with guns.
Now. I'll debate
Anglo-Saxons anywhere.
- I ain't afraid.
- I am.
Mr. Tolson when I came here today.
I saw the Sheriff outside
watching your house.
What's going on?
Maybe you should
ask the Sheriff.
I've been hearing a lot of rumours
about what you're doing.
My dad just called Dean last week.
And asked what is a communist doing and
teaching at a good Methodist College.
My polics are my business, Mr. Burgees
and I promise you that
it will not endanger the team.
But, sir. It is being endangered.
I came to Wiley College to be
educated not investigated.
- I understand.
- I don't wanna be dragged in anything.
If my parents...
I'm sorry.
Mr. Tolson, please. Just tell me
you're not a communist. Otherwise...
Otherwise what?
Otherwise what?
My father said I have to quit.
- Nobody wants that.
- Then tell me.
As I said, my polics are my business.
I guess I have to resign.
Mrs. Tolson, thank you for
the wonderful dinner.
You're welcome, Hamilton.
Good luck in Oklahoma.
I know you'll win.
All right. Well...
If anybody else wants to quit, I'll understand.
MOUNT SINAI.
Resolved: The negroes should be...
...should be admitted...
I can't hear you!
Louder!
Resolved:
Negroes...
...should be admitted...
...to state universities.
My partner and I will prove that...
...blocking a negroe's admission...
...to a state university
is not only wrong,
It is absurd.
The negro people are not
just the color in the American fabric.
They are the thread that
holds that all together.
Consider the legal and historical record.
May 13, 1865,
sergeant Crocker, a negro...
...is the last soldier to
die in the Civil War.
In 1918 the first
US soldiers...
...decorated for bravery in France...
...are negroes Henry
Johnson and Nedham Roberts.
announces that the "n" in "negro"...
...would hereafter be capitalize.
To force upon south what
they are not ready for,
would result in nothing
but more racial hatred.
Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, he is perhaps
the most eminent negro scholar in America,
He comments:
/"It's a silly waste of money...
/...time and temper...
/...to try to pelt a powerful majority to do...
/...what they're determined
to not to do."
My opponent so conveniently
chose to ignore the fact,
That W. E. B. Du Bois
is the first negro who receved a PhD,
From a white college
called Harvard.
Dr. Du Bois, he adds:
/"It is impossible,
/"Impossible for a negro
to receive a proper education...
/...at a white college."
The most eminent negro
scholar in America...
...is the product of the
United League education.
You see, Du Bois knows all too well the
white man's resistance to change.
But that's no reason to keep a
black man out of any college.
If someone didn't force upon
the south something it wasn't ready for,
I'd still be in chain, and Miss Booke
here'd be running from out of an asset.
I do admit it.
It is true.
Far too many whites are afflicted
with the disease of racial hatred.
And because of racism it would
be impossible for a negro to be happy...
...in a southern white college today.
And if someone is unhappy...
...it is impossible to see how they could
receive a proper education.
Yes, the time will come when negroes
and whites would walk on the same campus.
And we will share the same classrooms.
But sadly that day is not today.
As long as schools are segregated...
...negroes will receive
an education that is both...
...separate and unequal.
By Oklahoma is on reckoning...
...the state is currently spending
...for the education of a white child...
...than in the spending to
educate a colored child.
That means better textbooks
for that child than for that child.
I say that's a shame.
But my opponent says
today is not the day...
...for whites and coloreds
to go the same college.
To share the same campus.
To walk in the same classroom.
Well, would you be so kind to tell me
when is that day gonna come?
Is it gonna come tomorrow?
Is it gonna come next week?
In 100 years?
Never?
No! The time for justice, the time
for freedom and the time for equality...
Is always, is always right now!
Thank you.
What is this?
I told you is holy wine,
but hairy in the chest.
- If you say so.
- Good, ain't?
You will bat on me as if you'll need it.
And my weapon were words.
I don't need a gun,
I don't need a knife, you see...
Meet me outside in 5 minutes.
And then what?
Honey, nobody knows that better
than you know. I'm fine.
- How are you doing, Pearl?
- Pearl.
How do you do, I'm just like you.
And where's your husband?
He is in the study.
- Dr. Farmer.
- Congratulations Melvin.
- Thank you.
- You put us on the map.
Well, your son is doing great job,
his researching is impeccable.
That's good to hear, good to hear.
Listen.
There're people around town who aren't
very happy with your off-campus activities.
They're calling you a radical.
In fact I wouldn't be a bit suprised
to find out,
When in the mornin' when I woke up
that you're strung up to a tree.
They have to catch me first.
This is serious, Melvin. Very serious.
A hungry negro steals
a chicken and he goes to jail.
A rich businessman steals barns,
he goes to Congress.
I think that's wrong.
And that makes me radical,
a socialist, a communist...
Amen.
Amen on that.
- Jesus was radical.
- Careful.
- Yes, he was, Jesus was radical.
- Careful.
Mental institutions are filled with people
who confuse themselves with Jesus Christ.
You confess to Jesus Christ now?
You confess to Jesus Christ?
You know what words do.
- Come on now.
- Amen.
Don't wanna confuse yourself
with Jesus Christ.
No, I am not confused, I'm convinced.
I'm not judging you.
I'm just concerned about your methods.
What methods?
James was there that night, wasn't he?
He was not with me.
- Is he involved in this?
- Of course not, James.
I've done everything in my power
to keep him out of this.
To keep him out? What? Does he want to be involved?
You tell me he wants to involved?
No, he doesn't. Maybe this is something
you should discuss with him.
I'm discussing here with you right now and
I don't feel like I'm getting the straight answer from you.
No, you're getting a straight answer...
I think that you were
there with him that night.
- He was not with me.
- He is a 14 years old boy.
I understand that, James.
And I'll do whatever I have to do to
protect him, you understand that?
Do anybody thirsty?
- Thank you, thank you.
- You're welcome.
- Ruth, this is a fine party.
- Thank you.
I think it's time for some
sweet potato pie.
- Please.
- I help you with that.
Not the time to talk about it.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
It's so beautiful out here.
Yeah.
I was born near here,
up by the lake Jefferson.
I come here since I was a little boy.
Your parents still live around here?
No, they're gone.
My grandparents raised me.
My papa here spent his live building
levels around here, for free of course.
He was a slave?
My grandma was always
telling me that,
Be good or else the Confederates
will rise up
out of the Marshall cemetery,
and get me.
What?
I've just never seen this
side of you before.
What side?
You seem so calm, so peaceful.
I think the lake does it to me.
I am happy when I'm up here, you know?
It's funny...
A part of me wants just to
stay out here by the lake, you know.
To read books all day,
hunt or fish when I get hungry.
And the other part want to go
everywhere and see everything.
I want to go to New Orleans,
and New York, and Chicago,
...and even San Francisco.
So I wanna go...
walking down the road...
...and disappear.
Maybe you can take me with you.
- Come, over.
- What?
The schoolband is playing
in the outside.
What? Oh my Jesus!
I thought you said that
nobody ever comes here.
Nobody ever does come here, Samantha.
Hold on, hold on.
Henry, come on!
Henry!
Get dressed.
What's going on?
We gonna go get Mr. Tolson and
Samantha head back to the campus
And have a paper hour.
Come on, get dressed.
You know, you go get Tolson and I
meet up you a bit later on campus.
Come on, Lowe. You know
it's gonna be fun...
I guess I tell them you're gonna join us later.
He's gonna join us later.
/Just has to clean his house,
that's all.
Great news, great news,
great news!
My phone has been ringing off the hook.
University of Michigan wants to
debate us.
So does SMU (Southern Methodist
University), so does Georgia.
Where is Mr. Lowe?
When do I get to debate?
Sooner than you think, James.
Sooner than you think.
When?
When you're ready.
I am ready now.
Mr. Tolson, I do not mind if James...
What's wrong?
Maybe I'm tired of this.
Of what?
Of watching another people debate.
When am I get a chance to prove myself?
You are the best researcher, James.
We could not do this without you.
You do plenty without me.
Excuse me.
- James.
- What?
James, you wait.
It was so mean what you said in there.
I don't wanna lose your friendship...
How can you lose
something that you've never had?
You were never my friend?
Maybe I don't wanna just
be your friend.
Maybe it hurts me to be your friend.
Get stringed.
Mr. Tolson!
Where is he?
- Calm down, Henry.
- Have you seen him?
No, they don't let us.
- Ain't did unto you, did they?
- No, we're fine.
Good day.
I am dr. James Farmer, Wiley College.
This is William Taylor,
Mr. Tolson attorney.
- And this is his wife, Ruth.
- Hello.
I'd like to see my client, please.
William.
- Sir Dozier, dr James Farmer, this is...
- Hello William.
How are you doing today?
- Fine, sir. And you?
- Not too bad, not too bad.
Me and William we go a way back.
I knew William when I was a boy.
Could I see my client
now, sheriff?
Your client?
The fact of the business is, William
that your client is kind of busy right now.
Busy doing what?
Sheriff, sheriff.
It's a situation...
- Get some boys out there.
- Right. Men!
Let him go, let him go...
Let him go! Let him go!
- They're with you?
- That's right.
See, this is what happens to a town
when you let the unions in...
...starts trouble.
People get all wild up about nothing.
One of us is liable to get hurt.
If you catch my drift.
Sheriff, it is clear
that you have not evidence,
To arrest Mr. Tolson.
So I suggest you let him go.
You suggest it? Who the hell are you?
Couple months ago...
...there was a raid on the floor
of Tilmuch barn.
It was a peaceful and lawful
gathering of sharecroppers,
Who were brutally attacked by a
gang of violent vigilants.
Now witnesses say that
you were there.
If you led that raid, Sheriff,
You're the one who
broke the law. Not Tolson.
Are you threatening me, boy?
No, sir.
I wouldn't do that.
But I can not speak for
those people outside.
An unjust law is
no law at all.
What does that mean?
A mass-slaughter of citizens.
Both white and colored...
by Texas Rangers.
It's that really what you want
as a Sheriff of this county?
Now if you'd let Tolson go home,
I believe, I believe these folks outside...
...they go home as well.
- That pig wasn't worth 25 dollars.
- What?
You owe my father some money.
Have a seat, Mr. Farmer.
Oh, Lord...
SMU (Southern Methodist University)
has canceled.
University of Georgia sounds
like they will follow soon.
Why?
I've been blacklisted.
They're talking about censoring me,
Dean claiming the board have asked me to...
Stop working with
sharecroppers or else,
They say that is not my fight.
So...
Things are bad.
My academic career is in jeopardy,
My debate team has nowhere to go.
Anyone know who Antaeus was?
Sure, he was a gigantic wrestler
in Greek mythology.
His mother was Gaia, the Goddess of Earth, and...
I mean he was unbeatable,
because any time he was thrown down
to the Earth that would make him stronger.
That's correct, it would
make him stronger.
Defeat would make him stronger.
You are my students,
I am your teacher.
I think that is a sacred trust.
So what do I say to you now?
Quit?
Because the Dean says so?
Because the Sheriff says so?
Because the Texas Rangers says so?
No!
I am diametrically oppose to that.
My message to you is to never quit.
We are not quiting.
Good.
What do you wanna us to do?
- Debate Harvard.
- Harvard?
Harvard University. They're the
reigning national champions.
If we defeat them,
we defeat the best.
Mr.Tolson, sir!
With the whole lotta respect.
Harvard ain't gonna debate us.
Not a little Wiley College
in Marshall, Texas.
They know who we are, Henry.
I've been writing them letters,
sending them articles...
But how do we get them
letter back?
By continuing to win.
Dr. Farmer has informed me,
that Howard University...
is gonna be in Prairie View next week.
We annihilated Fisk (Univ.)
If we eliminate Howard...
...we will have beaten the two
best negro colleges in Amierica.
I can guarantee you that I will see
to it that Harvard does not ignore that.
All right?
Yes.
- Look forward on that, you don't see on that?
- I've been looking all the time.
- Prairie View, Texas. 127.
- You show me where I look, 'cause it's not on.
- It's not there.
- Is there, you just can't find it.
I see 2 and I see 7.
Right, now look for 1 in front
of this and you get it.
After 126,
Before 128.
I really don't think...
Where you get this map?
What are you doing?
I'll come down.
Back in the car, shut the door.
Nobody move.
Get down, get down.
Get down, too.
There is a negro in that car.
Come on, let's pick it.
All right. Everybody
sit tight and...
...I'll get the keys.
- How you doing, Mrs. Baker?
- I am fine.
- Are you all right?
- Yes, M'am.
- Nice if you come in.
- Thank you.
Henry.
Henry!
Henry!
Hi baby, how you doing?
Still waiting for me?
What's the matter baby?
Come on.
Baby!
Samantha!
Shut up, let's go.
- Where?
- Shut up, let's go.
- Where we going?
- Next room.
Got him, Mr. Tolson.
Ok, sit...
Come here.
Give me a hug.
Stop.
/...what I see, great big nigger hanging on the tree...
You're worthless...
What?
You think you are the only one hurt?
Ok, I'm sorry...
For everything...
For drinking...
I apologise.
I'm not talking about me.
You're right.
I'm gonna talk to her.
No, no. You won't allowed.
She doesn't need to see you like this.
No, is ok.
I'm just gonna talk to her...
Can you leave me alone?
Calm down, boy. Stop.
Stop. I am not playing with you.
Calm down.
You're crazy?
You're never gon' forgot what
you saw up there, you understand?
You're never gon' forgot what
you saw up there.
Can hang and they easy tore off you sometimes
sometimes they cut all of your fingers off,
Your toes, your nose, your ears.
Sometimes they cut your coverts off.
Sometimes they skin you alive.
You'll never be able to forget.
What do you think he did?
He did not have to do nothing
James, he did not have to do nothing.
In Texas, they lynch negroes.
Do you understand?
So it doesn't matter how good
we are, doesn't?
What do you talk? What?
This is all useless.
What are you talking about?
We're just a bunch of negroes debating
each other on subjects we all agree on.
James, don't talk like that.
All right?
- Why not?
- Because you can't.
Not you.
Bye. God bless.
Where is Samantha?
She's not going with us.
Why not?
What do you think?
I took her to the bus-station.
She wanted to go back to school.
You wanted your chance?
This is it.
How can any negro...
...defend the punishment of prison...
When he sees so much
oppression in his own life?
How?
Because crime itself
is a form of oppression.
And negroes fall victim
to more violent crime,
than any other race in America.
For us...
Prison not only offers
protection, but retribution.
Yes, it is.
And for the criminal...
It is a dark gift...
The hardship that
introduces a man to himself...
That rouses his
passion for freedom...
His hope for redemption.
Our next debater from
Wiley College,
Mr. James Farmer Junior.
Mr. Farmer.
Mum.
Mum.
Honey!
Hi!
So...
We lost.
I'm sorry.
This came...
Harvard?
Who sent this?
- Go on, open it! And read it.
- It seems that someone opened it already.
Not me.
- You didn't open it already?
- No.
You are not a good liar.
Out loud!
Dear Mr. Tolson.
Thank you for informing us...
about your historical victory
over Oklahoma City.
I'm sure you realize
our season is nearly over,
but today we received another
letter from Wiley College,
written by Mr. Henry Lowe.
with an "e".
He told us from his student's
prospective about your...
...about your undefeated season.
- Well, we are not undefeted any more.
- Doesn't matter.
We wish to extend
an invitation to...
We wish to extend invitation to
debate Harvard Crimson,
Here in Cambridge.
Let us know if this is agreeable to you.
- Don't tell anybody.
- No.
You don't have to thank me.
- I just wanted to show you I could write too.
- Yes, good. Thank you.
You could do me a favor.
What's that?
Keep Samantha on the team...
Why I wanna do that?
Mr. Tolson it was a rough night.
Yes it was, Mr. Lowe.
For all of us.
And she walked out on us
at the last minute.
No, sir. She did not walk out on us.
She walked out on me.
It's a good tea.
Resolved:
Capitalism is a immoral.
You will be arguing the affirmative.
To a bunch of Wall Street bankers.
Mr. Tolson, I owe you and my teammates...
You're late, come in, sit down.
Samantha, I am not...
Resolved.
You've got macaroni cheese, fried chicken,
black peas for good luck,
red beans and rice, corn-bread, candy canes,
I put some peach cutlet in there too.
And red pudding too. I know that you don't
like pudding but I put it anyway.
Thank you, mom.
Good luck, son.
Dad...
Yes, Junior.
You get bolster by regards, yeah?
Yes sir.
Come on, train's leaving.
Coming.
- Bye mom.
- Bye bye.
I love you.
We love you, too.
All aboard.
- I'm not going with you.
- What?
I can not leave the state.
It's a condition of my bail.
You can't let them stop you.
They're not stopping me.
I just don't wanna jeopardize
your opportunity.
You did want without me, this is what
you wanted to do all along. Isn't it?
It's right.
Why didn't you tell us before?
Because I didn't want to hear your arguments.
I knew they'd be too good.
All right, Mr. Lowe.
You are in charge.
Whatever your instinct will tell you,
you listen.
- Yes, sir.
- Let's go.
What we supposed to do without you?
Win.
I thought someone supposed to meet us.
- Wiley College?
- Yes.
I'm Harland Osbourne. Harvard has put me
in charge for the time you are here in Boston.
- Hi, I am Henry Lowe.
- Mr. Lowe.
- James Farmer Junior.
- Mr. Farmer.
- Samantha Booke.
- Of course, Miss Booke.
We should be going.
My car is up front.
- I've got it.
- Thank you.
Just so you know we're staying
on campus in Douglas Hall.
I got to tell you, this debate
is stiring up a lot of excitement.
- Really?
- Oh yeah.
It's gonna be broadcast all over America.
- Can we see where we gonna debate?
- Of course.
Hello, Harvard.
Excuse me.
You suppose to be here?
I guess we'll find out. Won't we?
Look, Mr. Farmer.
Lowe, I've got 5 dollars.
Yes, I did, too. It's called "per diem".
- Want me to hold it for you?
- No, not my 5 dollars.
I've got 5 dollars. I've got 5 dollars.
Yeah, me too.
Well, mine is crisp.
James, this is high tea, all right?
We nibble, we do not devour.
How do you know?
I don't.
Hello, I'm Wilson.
This is for you.
Thank you.
I can't accept that, sir.
It would be inappropriate.
"To be inappropriate".
- Who this wrote?
- From Harvard.
Maybe it's more money.
We have been informed,
by Tau Kappa Gamma that your team delivers...
Canned speaches...
Arguments written by
faculty rather then students.
Therefore we are changing the topic.
You have the same amount of time
To write new arguments as the Harvard team.
Coaches helped
students all the time.
Yes, sir.
Both teams will be delivered
the same reference books.
A new topic: "Resolved: Civil disobedience
is a moral weapon to fight for justice."
Wiley College will
be arguing the affirmative.
Thank you, sir.
I can't reach Mr. Tolson.
Nobody knows where he is.
He sent us up to loose.
We can't win without him.
You're wrong.
We can't win without him.
Thoreau?
Here is your coffee, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Just Wilson.
Thank you, Wilson.
- Well, you have to use the mass...
- But is that...
Agreed, James. But we'll save it for
the red button. We gonna save the best for last.
Because you have to...
You have to lead the audience...
I think we should include this
Ghandi concept with Satyagraha...
I don't agree. I don't think people can
understand Satyagarha... or Such a gar...
Satyagraha. From the Sanskrit,
meaning truth and fairness.
I told you.
It's obvious to me that we should
begin debate with Ghandi.
That's exactly what
I won't do it.
Why should I do the obvious thing?
Because that's what wins debate.
Listen to what you're saying.
This is Harvard, ok?
The first thing you think when you say
"disobedience"...What's the first thing?
That's why we chose Ghandhi!
He's a strong poet.
I wanna win.
Do you wanna win?
Yes, I wanna win.
This is not getting us the way out.
Tolson told me I was in charge.
Ain't put you in charge.
He put me in charge,
so I make the decision.
We will not starting with Ghandi.
You act like a kid!
- You are a kid.
- You are an idiot.
- Am I an idiot?
- Yes, you are an idiot.
To hell with you,
to hell with this debate.
To hell with me?
Just because I've just leaved you?
Crazy, you!
- He's coming back, isn't he?
- See if I care.
You're beautiful when you sleep.
Yes, I know, I know...
But she ain't stop me from looking at you.
Shut up and go to bed.
James, come on, wake up.
No.
James...
Come on James, get up.
What?
What is this?
That's my notes.
Why are you giving on to me for?
Because you're debating, not me.
What?
It's your turn, James.
You're serious?
- You're crazy.
- 14 is just as good as me.
Judges will love you.
No, you can't quit.
I'm not quitting Samantha.
Tolson made me captain,
and I said that you are ready.
You saw me at Howard,
it was horrible.
That's right. You did it horrible, didn't you?
Stuck-up the whole joint. Right?
So she just quit, right?
She just give up?
No.
Who is the judge?
What?
Who is the judge?
Judge is God.
And why is he God?
Because he decides who wins or
loses, not my opponent.
Who is your opponent?
He doesn't exist.
Why doesn't he exist?
Because he is a mute dissenting
voice of the truth I speak!
That's right. Speak the truth!
/Direct from Harvard, Memorial Hall
/in Cambridge Massachusetts,
/This is the WNBC Radio, bringing
/to you live tonight's history, making debate...
/Between little Wiley College,
/from Marshall Texas,
/And the Harvard University
/debate team.
/The first time ever a negro college
/has faced the national champions.
/Harvard's Dean and students are making
their ways to the podium now.
/The crowd as if were cued fall silent.
/On this historical occasion...
/We welcome the distinguished
/team from Wiley College,
/the illustrious judges, you, the audience,
/and through the wonder of radio, the nation.
Harvard University celebrates
its 300th anniversary this year.
And in Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
its 5th President of the US.
/But no University, no matter how
grand or august in its history
/Can't afford to live in the past,
/So in the spirit of tomorrow...
/I introduce to you today...
The debaters from Wiley College,
Miss Samantha Booke
Mr. James Farmer Junior.
What?
Mr. Farmer will argue
the first affirmative.
Resolved:
Civil disobedience is a moral weapon
in the fight for justice.
But how can disobedience ever be moral?
I guess that's depend on one's
definition of the words.
Word.
In 1919 in India, 10,000 people
gathered in Amritsar...
to protest the tyranny
of British rule.
Has it started?
Your brother's talking, just sit down.
/General Reginald Dyer,
/traped them in a courtyard,
And ordered his troops to fire
into the crowd for 10 minutes.
/Men, women, children,
/shot down in cold blood.
Dyer said he taught
them a moral lesson.
Ghandhi and his followers
responded not with violence,
But with organised campaign
of non-cooperation.
/Government buildings were occupied,
/Streets were blocked by people
/who refused to rise.
/Even being beaten by police.
Ghandhi was arrested.
But the British were
soon forced to release him.
He called it "a moral victory".
The definition of moral:
Dyer's lesson,
or Ghandi's victory?
You choose.
From 1914 to 1918,
For every single minute the world was at war.
Just think of it.
Were hurled into eternity
every hour of every day,
Of every night for 4 long years.
Here was a slaughter immeasurable
greater that what happened in Amritsar.
Can be anything moral about it?
Nothing.
Except that it stopped Germany
from enslaving all of Europe.
Civil disobedience isn't
moral because it's non-violent.
Fighting for your country
with violence can be deeply moral.
Demanding the greatest sacrifice of all.
Life itself.
Non-violence, is the mask
civil disobedience wears
to conceal it's true face.
Anarchy.
/Ghandhi believes one must always act
/With love and respect for ones opponents.
/Even if they are Harvard debaters.
/Ghandhi also believes that
law-breakers...
Must accept the legal consequences
for their actions.
Does it sound like anarchy?
Civil disobedience is not
something for us to fear.
It is after all
an American concept.
You see, Ghandhi draws his inspiration
not from a Hindu Scripture,
But from Henry David Thoreau who I believe
graduated from Harvard,
And lived by upon not
too far from here.
My opponent is right about one thing.
Thoreau was a Harvard grade,
And like many of us,
A bit self-righteous.
He once said:
/"Any man more right
than his neighbors...
/...constitutes a majority of one."
Thoreau, the idealist, could never know,
That Adolf Hitler would
agree with his words.
The beauty and burden of
democracy is this:
"No idea prevails without
the support of the majority".
The people decide the
moral issues of the day,
Not a majority of one.
Majorities do not decide
what is right or wrong.
Your conscience does.
So why should us citizens
surrender his the whole conscience
/To a legacy.
/We must never, ever kneel down...
Before the tyranny of a majority.
We can't decide which laws
to obey, which to ignore.
If we could, I'd never
stop for a red light.
My father is one of those men
that stand between us and chaos.
A police officer.
I remember the day his partner,
/His best friend...
/Was gunned down in the line of duty.
Most vividly of all, I remember
the expression on my dads face.
Nothing...
That erodes the rule of law
can be moral.
No matter what name we give it.
Why doesn't he say something?
In Texas...
...they lynch negroes.
My teammate and I...
Saw a man strung by his neck.
and set on fire.
We drove to a lynch mob.
We pressed our faces
against the floor board.
I looked at my teammates.
I saw the fear in their eyes.
And worse, the shame.
What was this negro's crime?
That he should be hung without trial
in a dark forest filled with fog.
Was he a thief?
Was he a killer?
Or just a negro?
Was he a sharecropper?
A preacher?
Were his children waiting up for him?
And who are we to just lie there
And do nothing.
No matter what he did,
the mob was the criminal.
But the law did nothing,
Just left us wondering: Why?
My opponent says:
"Nothing that erodes the rule of law
can be moral."
But there is no rule of law in
the Jim Crow South.
Not, when negroes
are denied to housing,
turned away from schools,
hospitals,
And not,
when we are lynched.
St. Augustine said:
"An unjust law is no law at all."
Which means I have a right,
even a duty to resist.
With violence or civil disobedience...
You should pray
I choose the latter.
/In tonight debate...
/Between Harvard University,
/And Wiley College.
And the winner is...
Wiley College.
Just 7 years later in
founded the Congress of Racial Equality.
And became a leader in the
civil rights movement.
After a long life
of teaching and writing.
James Farmer Sr. passed away in 1961.
on the day before
Samantha Booke, a lawyer,
took the first Freedom Ride to Alabama.
Henry Lowe went on study theology
at the University of California.
and became a minister.
Melvin Tolson became a
world renowned poet.
He continued his work with
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.
By the end of 1936, it had
For ten years the Wiley College
debate team went undefeated.