Today’s Great Debaters

Voltaire Rico Sterling was reared on the South Side of Chicago, IL and attended Whitney M. Young Magnet High School where he participated in the Chicago Urban Debate League from 1995-1996. As a debater, Voltaire was coached by Les Lynn of the NAUDL. After high school, Voltaire attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. Voltaire earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Harvard Law School, where he was the first black Class President and Commencement Speaker. He is admitted to the Illinois Bar. Realizing, however, that acting is his true calling, Voltaire left the law to pursue head-on his bliss as an actor. Denzel Washington recently hand-picked Voltaire and cast him, at the time without an agent or manager, as the debater “Otheree Hubbard” in the much anticipated feature film The Great Debaters.

Tracy Carson is a native of Chicago, IL. Tracy participated in the Chicago Urban Debate League from 1997-2000. As a member of the Morgan Park High School debate team, she finished as the top individual speaker in the 2000 Chicago City Championship Tournament and was a member of the first place team. She joined the Northwestern University debate team in 2000. The highlight of her intercollegiate debating career was winning the Capitol City Classic Tournament at Catholic University in 2003 and qualifying for the prestigious National Debate Tournament. Tracy received a Marshall Scholarship to conduct doctoral research at Oxford University in England. During early 2008, she begins a one-year Fulbright Fellowship grant to conduct research in Cape Town, South Africa.

Check out the 60 Minutes segment on urban debate – and meet the great debaters of today!