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Henrietta Bell Wells, a Pioneering Debater, Dies at 96

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

March 12, 2008 Henrietta Bell Wells, a Pioneering Debater, Dies at 96 By DOUGLAS MARTIN, NY Times Henrietta Bell Wells, the only woman, the only freshman and the last surviving member of the 1930 Wiley College debate team that participated in the first interracial collegiate debate in the United States, died on Feb. 27 in Baytown, Tex. She was 96. Her friend Edward Cox confirmed the death. The story of the team, called the Great Debaters in last year?s movie of the same name, began in 1924 at Wiley College, a small liberal arts college in Marshall, Tex., founded a half century earlier by the Methodist Episcopal Church to educate ?newly freed men.? Melvin B. Tolson arrived at the all-black school that autumn to teach English and other subjects...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).