The Great Debaters (2007)

The true story of Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington) and the debate team he started at the historically black Wiley College in 1935. Tolson guides an all-black debate team made up of a rebellious and experienced academic, the precocious teenage son of Wiley College's President, and a lone ambitious female member. We follow the students on a string of debating victories throughout the South, leading up to a debate against Harvard College. On the way, the debate team becomes one of the first black debate teams to face and beat a white institution while learning valuable lessons about discrimination and inequality in the South.