Henrietta Bell Wells, the only woman on the 1930 Wiley College team that took part in the nation’s first interracial collegiate debate, was remembered Sunday as a deeply spiritual person whose presence moved others to be quiet and listen.
Wells died Feb. 27 in Baytown. She was 95.
Wells was the last surviving member of the team portrayed in last year’s movie, “The Great Debaters.”
The movie, starring Denzel Washington, focused on Melvin Tolson’s success leading an underdog debate team at a small, southern, historically black college in the mid-1930s. Founded in 1873, Wiley is in east Texas, about 40 miles from Shreveport, La.
“She really brought to the debate team something she already had,” Margaret Griggs, a sorority sister and friend for more than 30 years, said Sunday at a memorial service. “She was simply someone you listened to. She had that way about her.”
About 100 friends, spanning nearly a century in age, gathered for the service at St. James Episcopal Church, where Wells was an active member for 40 years. Her husband, Wallace, died in 1987. They had no children.
In the Golden Globe-nominated film, Washington portrayed the hard-driving Tolson, who came to Wiley in 1924 to teach English and speech and led the school’s debaters to national victories against both black and white teams.
