Please: Go see The Great Debaters Today

And, please, take me with you.

5:55 a.m. I really have another cool hour before I have get to up, but all I could think about was how to convince you to go see The Great Debaters.

First, I love movies like this: tastefully acted, suspenseful and fulfilling, rich in history, but so dramatic that you don't realize you're learning history. I can't wait to see it again.

I really planned to see it when it opened Christmas Day but these holidays were so all consuming that I looked up and it was Jan. 5 (Ravi's s birthday) and I still had not gone. I wasn't even thinking about going, until I was at KJLH Radio, about to go on the air, guest hosting for L.A. Speak's Out, when I had to run to the door for this nice young man. My guests for that segment were wedged between an Obama discussion and the topic of my next post. They were promoting the upcoming Martin Luther King Parade in Los Angeles. Founder Larry Grant invited his celebrity grand marshalls, Dr. Mildred Garcia, the president of California State University Dominguez Hills, (a Puerto Rican sister, fresh in from New York) and Jermaine Williams, the young man who was trying to figure out how to get in to the station.

He looked slightly familiar and I welcomed him in, but it was time to crack the mike so I did not learn that he was "Porkschop" from Stomp the Yard until we were underway. But, Mr. Grant introduced him as Jermaine Williams, who played Hamilton Burgess in The Great Debaters. Like my youngest son, he just turned 25, and he was a joy to get to know. He easily interacted with the other kids in the studio for the next segment.

So, since I met this young man, after the show, I called the family to get up (No easy feat on Saturday morning). Kwaku was already out but Jaaye was sleep but I told him to get ready, we were going to the movies.

We went, and we were not disappointed. When Jaaye was younger I took him to see Lean on Me, a movie which he often says was one of his favorites. That one, Akeelah and the Bee and The Great Debaters are great movies for young students to see to help inspire them along their studies.

I am not going to tell you what the movie is about. If you lived in America, you've probably already seen the interviews of Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker (click the link above for clips). Still, somehow it has only made a reported $16.5 million to date. It's been my experience that boot legs of I am Legend and American Gangster were readily available, (which in its twisted way attests to the popularity of a movie) but I have seen none of this one. The fact that many families are blowing off this movie is a tragedy.

Go see it in the theaters. This is one of those films we have been clamoring for, always saying if our rich superstars got together and made better films we would support them. But the gang banger films with basic unknowns are laughing all the way to the bank, while this one features two Oscar winners.

There were only four Debaters featured, and Jermaine is the one who did not compete in the end, so you will know which one he is, but the eyes of his co-star (the youngest debater coincidentally named Denzel Whitaker), haunt me to this day. You must see his last scene, his greatest moment.

More powerful though, was his interaction with his father and how they inspired each other throughout the movie. And Jaaye reminded me that he later turned out to be James Farmer, the founder of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), since this is based on a true story.

Please. Go see The Great Debaters while it is still in the theaters. Not just for Denzel and Oprah's sake, (I do hope they venture into more cinematic efforts like this) and Denzel's great directing, but you should go see it for you. And bring that young person with you--no matter who he or she belongs to --and inspire their spring semesters.

Here's a few more pix I snapped from that radio program: Click here!