When TCU hosted Wiley College’s African-American debate team in 1935, supporters of the teams were banned from sitting together.

On Wednesday, supporters of both teams will be together to watch them compete on campus to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the original debate.

Despite several competitions between the two teams in the past, Wednesday’s debate will mark the first time the Wiley College debate team has set foot on TCU’s campus since 1935.

That year, TCU hosted the Great Debaters of Wiley College with the first debate held between an all-white team and all-black team on a southern college campus.

The Great Debaters were made famous when they lost only one debate between 1930-1940, and inspired the 2007 film “The Great Debaters” starring Denzel Washington. 

The idea for a reunion debate stemmed from an article written in the Fort Worth Magazine last January detailing the 1935 debate and the Great Debaters.

“This part of history at TCU has kind of been lost,” said Amorette Hinderaker, the convener of debates for the TCU Forensics team. “I think that it’s important we bring that back to the forefront.”

The two teams competed against each other at the Wiley College campus Jan. 23.

Hinderaker said the debate on Wednesday will be “commemorative” and will start on the same day and time as the original debate. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Mary Couts Burnett Library.

According to a press release from TCU Forensics, debaters will focus on the following prompt: “On balance, a citizen-focused police force is preferable to a militarized police force.”

“We wanted to get something that would be interesting to the public,” Hinderaker said. “Yet would let us touch on some of the history involved with this debate in race issues.”

Students Timothy Betts, sophomore philosophy major, and team president Kelsey Fahler, senior strategic communication major, will compete against Jesus Cardenas and Benjamin Turner of Wiley College.

There will be three community judges scoring the debate including E.R. Bills, author of the Fort Worth Magazine article that inspired the debate’s creation.

The debate is a chance for the school to rediscover the history of debate TCU has celebrated since it’s founding, Hinderaker said.

“This history is really important for TCU to remember,” Hinderaker said. “How it fits in not just with desegregation and Wiley’s history, but with our own.”

Hinderaker said spectators should attend in order to witness the way debate was meant to be seen.

“Our hope is the TCU community comes out and sees these young students take on global issues,” Hinderaker said.

“These are very intelligent, highly intelligent students engaging in a meaningful and researched dialogue, and that affects everyone in America and globally.”