Each
Fourth Friday is Film/Movie Night, 6pm in the
sanctuary.
On
November 28th, we'll see "The Great Debaters" - a powerful
film based on the true story of a black college debate team, set in the
1930s. Directed and starring Denzel Washington.
The
real tale of the unlikely ascendance of the debate team at
Wiley
College
, a small all-black institution in
Marshall
,
Tex.
, in 1935… [Denzel Washington] portrays the noted poet, social activist
and educator Melvin B. Tolson, who coached the
Wiley
College
team… Tolson is not only a ferocious coach but also a political firebrand
who runs afoul of the local sheriff for his organizing of the mixed-race
Southern Tenant Farmers Union.
“The
Great Debaters” doesn’t shy away from showing the humiliation and
persecution of blacks in the Jim Crow South… The characters’ reactions
to these events, it implies, sow the seeds of the civil-rights movement,
which is also foreshadowed in the debates.
“The
Great Debaters” is rated PG-13. It has mild sexual situations and some
strong language.
from the New York
Times review by STEPHEN HOLDEN
The Peoples Church of Chicago