The 2007 biographical film about Melvin Tolson and the Wiley College debate team starring Denzel Washington is The Great Debaters.
Denzel Washington directed the film and plays Melvin B. Tolson, the influential debate coach at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. Set largely in 1935, the story follows Tolson as he trains a talented team of Black students to compete against better-funded white colleges during the era of Jim Crow segregation.
The film was inspired by a 1997 American Legacy article by Tony Scherman. Its climactic debate against Harvard is a dramatic recreation rather than a literal account of the historical record: the real Wiley team famously defeated the University of Southern California, then a leading debate program.
The Great Debaters also stars Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker. It is distinct from Glory, which depicts the Black Union regiment in the American Civil War, and Remember the Titans, a football drama about racial integration in Virginia.