Community Checkup

Since my op-ed in the Philly Inquirer, I have received a few emails about the historical inaccuracies of The Great Debaters. My response has been that: (1) my piece was really more about debate and hip-hop than it was about The Great Debaters, (2) the film is not meant to be a documentary–it’s based on a true story, and (3) even with the inaccuracies it doesn’t diminish the achievement of the Wiley debate team or make the movie any less powerful.

Still, I thought I’d share two of the main inaccuracies of the movie:

Myth #1: The Willie Lynch letter/speech mentioned in the movie is a hoax.
- In the movie, Denzel (as Melvin Tolson), makes reference to a document written by Willie Lynch which outlined how to control slaves. Denzel states that the term lynching refers to this man and his methods.

-The Willie Lynch document has been floating around the internet for years (I first heard of it in the 90s) but there is no evidence of the authenticity of it. Furthermore, as Jelani Cobb and other historians point out, it includes words that either didn’t exist or were used in very different contexts during the slavery days such as “outline,” “indoctrination,” and “self-refueling.”

Myth #2: The Wiley College debate team never debated Harvard.
- They did defeat the top-ranked debate team in the country at the time but it wasn’t Harvard, it was the University of Southern California (USC).

My perspective on this is that the first inaccuracy is more of an issue than the second. The Harvard inaccuracy is just about theatrical flare. Today, when you think of USC you think of football, not debating. I’m sure Harvard was chosen to give it a bit more punch.

The Willie Lynch inaccuracy however, has been a very popular urban legend in the black community for some time and has often been used to explain why there is a lack of unity among blacks. Despite being false, the letter probably captured actual psychological strategies used to keep slaves from unifying. However, its effect in the black community has been the pointing of the finger to this mythical man and his methods rather than a more complex set of historical and current circumstances. The origins of the issues we face today are not that simple.

Still, I say The Great Debaters was a great movie.

For a more critical take on the movie check out Mark Anthony Neal’s post on his blog, Critical Noir.