Transcript Staff

Actor and director Denzel Washington's film "The Great Debaters" features a strong Oklahoma connection.

The University of Oklahoma's College of Arts and Sciences will offer a free screening of the movie and a talk by retired OU professor Melvin Tolson Jr., whose father is the primary character in the film.

The program begins 7 p.m. Monday in Meacham Auditorium in Oklahoma Memorial Union, 900 Asp Ave.

In the film, Washington portrays Professor Tolson's father, Melvin Tolson Sr., a spirited college professor whose all-black Wiley College debate team stunned the nation's most prestigious college debate programs in 1935. Tolson Sr. later served as a faculty member at Langston University for many years and was named poet laureate of Liberia.

Tolson Jr. was an acclaimed professor in his own right. As OU's first full-time black professor in 1959, he taught French and was presented the Regents' Award for Excellence in Teaching during his long tenure at OU. In 2002, the university honored him and colleague George Henderson Sr. by naming the campus multicultural center in their honor.

"It is a special honor to have Melvin Tolson Jr. introduce the film that features his father," said Paul B. Bell Jr., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "In Oklahoma, the Tolsons represent two generations of academic leadership, men who guided thousands of students to a better life through education and who set fine examples for all of us."

The program, co-sponsored by OU's African and African-American Studies Program and the Film and Video Studies Program, kicks off Focus on Arts and Sciences Week and is one of the university's Black History Month celebrations.

For additional information or accommodations on the basis of disability, call the College of Arts and Sciences at 325-2347.