Small Black College Hopes Fame Will Bring Fortune

A small black liberal-arts college in Marshall, Tex., is hoping to revive its dwindling enrollment and generate financial donations through somewhat unconventional means — a Hollywood blockbuster, The New York Times reports.

Wiley College, once made famous by its team of college debaters who defeated many white competitors in the Jim Crow South in the 1930s, will be the subject of a movie entitled “The Great Debaters.” The film, scheduled to open December 25, stars Denzel Washington as the black poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson who led the debate team. It is produced by Oprah Winfrey.

The college, whose graduates include civil-rights leaders such as James Farmer Jr. and Heman Sweatt, has struggled financially, like many other black colleges in Texas and nationwide. For decades the school has been hard-pressed to recruit and retain students, and in 2006 the college ran a $1-million deficit.

Since the beginning of movie production, however, the college has been feeling and looking more optimistic about its fund-raising prospects. Enrollment at Wiley is higher than it has been in at least 40 years, and some of the buildings and grounds on the campus have been restored by moviemakers. Now, administrators say, there are hopes to revive the debate program and to establish the campus’s first endowed chair, named after Mr. Tolson. Wal-Mart has announced that it will endow the Melvin B. Tolson Scholarship Fund with $100,000.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)