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Up For Debate

Denzel Washington’s characters usually take a wary perspective on power and race. As South African dissident Steven Biko, Washington fought apartheid; as Malcolm X, he spoke out against racism; and as Private Trip in Glory, the 1989 film by Ed Zwick, he challenged the legitimacy of his white commanding officer, the Harvard-educated Robert Gould Shaw. In The Great Debaters, Washington takes on Harvard anew as Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College, an African-American college in East Texas, who led the school’s 1935 debate team to victory over Harvard’s all-white team.

The film’s climactic scene was shot in Sanders Theater, making it one of the few movies — others include Amistad and Love Story — that Harvard has allowed to be filmed on campus. The Great Debaters, which also marks Washington’s directorial debut, opens Christmas Day.