So did they really beat Harvard?

So I have heard varying things about whether or not the Wiley College debate team of 1935 actually did debate and beat Harvard University. After looking around it seems that the team did debate the national debate champions in that year but that year the champions were actually the University of Southern California. I guess debating Harvard Crimson makes for a better story....

But, according to the New York Times article, " For Struggling Black College, Hopes of a Revival" (December 5, 2007,) "the film omits one reality: even though they beat the reigning champions, the Great Debaters were not allowed to call themselves victors because they did not belong to the debate society, which did not allow blacks until after World War II."

It also seems that some license was taken in the composition and members of the debate team in the movie. Save James Farmer Jr, who went on to form CORE, the Council for Racial Equality, a integral organization in the civil rights movement, the other characters, Henry Lowe and Samantha Booke, seem to be amalgamations of other team members who competed during the early to mid 1930s.

For more information about the true history of the Wiley Forensic Society, read this linked article in the Marshall News Messenger.