the great debators

The Great Debaters”, a movie drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson a professor at Wiley College located in Marshall Texas, in 1935 he inspired the student body to form the schools 1stdebate team, which went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. The movie has an academy award-winning cast, consisting of Denzel Washington playing the lead role of Melvin B. Tolson; Forrest Whittaker, who plays the stern father in the character of Dr. James Farmer Sr.; his son, a debate team member played by Denzel Whittaker; the only female debater, played by actress Jurnee Smollete and Nate Parker who plays the young ‘fire in the belly’, Henry Lowe. Together these actors and actresses paint an inspiring story of a truly difficult era for not only African Americans, but for all seeking civil rights.

In the movie and throughout this story, we can identify several examples of good arguments and bad arguments, or good thinking and bad thinking. The following logical fallacies were identified; attack of a person, the argument from authority, the argument from tradition, appeal to force, as well as popular appeal. The first logical fallacy I would like to key in on is popular appeal. I believe this was demonstrated when Melvin B. Tolson was attempting to form a union with the sharecroppers, he tried to convey the message that bonding together their voice would become stronger than the individual sharecroppers all pleading their cases separately, I believe that this is an example of good thinking. While I am identifying this formation of unions, I also identified in the movie a scene where an old union busting tactic was used and this was an example of bad thinking. During the scene where the Sheriff of Marshall Texas is questioning the 2 sharecroppers as to their knowledge of the secret meeting, he was attempting a tactic known as divide and conquer. This is still used today by management to attempt to foil the attempt of workers unionizing, and is a pure