East Texas debaters are set for a rematch at Wiley College | Bob Ray Sanders | Fort Worth, Ar….
Long before I got to Fort Worth’s I.M. Terrell High School, I had heard of the legendary English teacher whose very name caused people to quiver.
Fleacie Stevens.
My older brothers and sisters, and practically everyone I knew who had graduated from the school, had warned, “You don’t want Mrs. Stevens.”
Then they would add, reverently, “Fleacie does not play.”
Always added to the tales of Stevens was the story, which I’m not sure I believe: “You know she flunked her own son.” A dramatic pause and, “Sure did.”
I did have Stevens for English literature, and she did not play. She worked us, pushed us and made us achieve more than we thought we could. We had to write and speak with clarity, with emphasis on enunciation and proper grammar.
Her method of instruction came naturally, because she was a proud graduate of Wiley College in Marshall, one of several historically black colleges in Texas that many African-American teachers attended before going out-of-state to earn their master’s degrees.
The small liberal arts college in East Texas, which was founded in 1873, had a reputation of turning out scholars, including the late civil rights leader James Farmer Jr., who helped found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
From 1924 to 1947, the school had a renowned speech and English faculty member, Melvin B. Tolson, who built a reputation as a debate coach and poet and as a fighter for tenant farmers in the area. I don’t know whether he taught Stevens, but I always felt that she was my connection to that historic figure.
Many Americans probably first heard of Wiley College and Tolson in 2007 when the film The Great Debaters was released.
Directed by Denzel Washington, who stars with Forest Whitaker, the movie tells the story of Tolson’s 1935 debate team, which became “national champions” by defeating a prestigious white university.
In the film, Tolson (played by Washington) arranges a debate with Harvard. In actuality that national showdown was with the University of Southern California before a crowd of 1,100. On the team that year was Farmer, who was only 14 years old.
It is a beautiful and powerful film, directed with sensitivity to the times, the place and the people that are hard for us today to even contemplate, let alone begin to understand.
Of course the times have changed, but Wiley College is still there and still succeeding. It has an enrollment of 1,351, according to the school’s website, and 97 percent of its students receive some type of financial aid.
It still has a debate team that last month announced exciting news. The Melvin B. Tolson/Denzel Washington Forensics Society of Wiley College, 77 years after its historic debate with USC, will host the California school in an exhibition debate this month.
The debate will be part of the school’s Ethical Student Leadership Conference and will take place 7 p.m. Jan. 27 in the Julius S. Scott Sr. Chapel.
“Wiley College and the University of Southern California first met in a country divided by a color line,” Wiley President and CEO Haywood L. Strickland said in a news release. “I am proud that all these years later, these schools will meet in a country that celebrates differences, knows that color is no determinant of intelligence and recognizes that we share a common humanity.”
I have no doubt the Wiley debaters will bring pride to their school, and to the memories of Melvin B. Tolson and Fleacie Stevens.
