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Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin B. Tolson. Brief Bio. Melvin Beaunorus Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri. Some sources say that he was born on February 6, 1898, others say in 1900. Melvin was a poet, essayist, columnist a professor at Langston University and even a former mayor of Langston from 1954 - 1960.

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Melvin B. Tolson

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  1. Melvin B. Tolson

  2. Brief Bio Melvin Beaunorus Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri. Some sources say that he was born on February 6, 1898, others say in 1900.

  3. Melvin was a poet, essayist, columnist a professor at Langston University and even a former mayor of Langston from 1954 - 1960.

  4. While at Wiley, Tolson built up an award-winning debate team which, in 1935, competed against Harvard in the national championships.

  5. In 1930, Mr. Tolson scheduled a debate with the University of Michigan Law School, which was an all-white school.

  6. Wiley’s debate team held a ten year winning streak from 1929 to 1939. In 1935 they won a National Championship over the University of Southern California (USC).

  7. According to Henrietta Bell Wells ( Samantha Booke in the Great Debaters) Mr. Tolson, who would win wide distinction as a poet, saw argumentation as a way to cultivate mental alertness. Wiley was soon debating and defeating black colleges two and three times its size.

  8. He was a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance and, although he was not a participant in it, his work reflects its influences. Liberia declared Melvin B. Tolson as its poet laureate in 1947.

  9. Melvin died at the age of 67 on August 29, 1966, in Dallas, Texas, a few days after undergoing surgery for cancer. He is buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

  10. The success of the Wiley College debate team was memorialized recently in the film The Great Debaters, starring Denzel Washington University of Michigan Law School 1944 collection, Rendezvous with America (his first published book),

  11. Picture sources • http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1166194/%5BMELVIN-B.-TOLSON,-FULL-LENGTH-PORTRAIT,-FACING-FRONT,-SEATED-IN... • http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lewisturco.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345219e069e20120a830a216970b-800wi&imgrefurl=http://lewisturco.typepad.com/poetics/2010/02/uncle-weslis-daily-epitaph-for-thursday-february-4th-2010.html&usg=__hp4ho65cgkikd8OKieZ9iEXqUh4=&h=334&w=340&sz=61&hl=en&start=3&zoom=1&tbnid=5qOFTh6jpAjYRM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=119&ei=SGCJTZn1AY23tweX0MH6DQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmelvin%2Btolson%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rlz%3D1R2ADRA_enUS422%26biw%3D1045%26bih%3D417%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1

  12. Sources • http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/tolson/tolson.htm • http://hamptonblu.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/the-real-great-debater-2/ • https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/in-remembrance-3-2-2008/ • Power Point produced by Chelsea Walls, Kwanshae Flenory, Mariah Harris, Jenica Yim, and Marquise Brown.

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