The Rev. Dr. Christopher M. Hamlin serves as the Pastor of the 123-year old Tabernacle Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama and as Director of the HIV/AIDS African American Faith-Based Initiative at the 1917 Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  For six years he served as Facilitator for Project Corporate Leadership, a leadership program designed for middle managers of businesses and corporations sponsored by the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce.  And, from 1990 to September 2000, Dr. Hamlin served as Senior Pastor of the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church of Birmingham.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”                                                                           ~Paul, Galatians 3.28 (NIV)  

I watched the movie, The Great Debaters, when it came out in 2007 and again this past Sunday.  BET is featuring the movie and I encourage everyone to watch it or rent it. 

For those who have not seen it, the movie tells the story of Prof. Melvin B. Tolson (played by Denzel Washington and also starring Forest Whitaker as Dr. James Farmer, Sr.), who taught English and Drama at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas and is credited in creating the college’s debate team that broke racial barriers and successfully defeated the team at the University of Southern California (in the movie it’s Harvard University).