DALLAS (AP) _ Seventy-four years after their meet was canceled, teams from Wiley College and Southern Methodist University finally got their chance to debate.
The two schools met on the SMU campus last night and debated whether the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay should be shut down.
SMU won, 3-0, but people who participated in the debate say that didn’t matter.
The Dallas Morning News reports SMU debate coach Ben Voth said the event was a, “meeting of an unfulfilled promise.”
The two schools were supposed to debate in 1935 but that was called off possibly amid negative publicity surrounding Melvin B. Tolson, who led the all-black college’s elite debate team.
Wiley College’s debate team was the subject of Denzel Washington’s 2007 film, “The Great Debaters.”
The college, which is located in Marshall, Texas, used a $1 million gift from Washington to restart the team under new coach Shannon LaBove.
LaBove said she’s proud of her students for handling all the media attention so well.
She has said she expects the team to be nationally competitive within a couple of years.
Marshall is a city of about 24,000, located 140 miles east of Dallas.