NEGRO DEBATERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21085, 11 July 1938, Page 12

NEGRO DEBATERS

VISIT TO TIMARU THIS WEEK INTERESTING PERSONALITIES Two members of the Le Moyne University. a negro university in Tennessee, U.S.A., Messrs James Spencer Byas and Charles Webster Gilton, will arrive in Timaru on Thursday as part of their world debating tour. In the evening in the Timaru Boys’ High School Assembly Hall, the negroes will debate the question “That the people of America have found the formula for happiness.” They will take the affirmative and the negative will be taken by Mr G. F. Ward and Miss Averille Lawrence. On Friday addresses will be delivered by Professor Alexander, who is in charge of the team, and by the debaters. The negro debaters are both graduates, having the * same degree of Bachelor of Science. Mr Byas is 21 years old and is the son of a distinguished negro doctor. Dr. J. V. Byas. who practises in Tennessee. He graduated with high honours from the Booker T. Washington High School. Memphis. In 1937 he was a delegate to the National Youth Conference of the coloured Methodist churches. This is not his first debating trip. In 1936 he toured California, while he has also been to England.

Mr Gilton is 22 years old and was born in Georgia. He graduated from the same high school. In 1936 he debated against Oxford University, and in the next year against the AngloScottish Union. He is a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The tour is in charge of a manager. Professor Boris G. Alexander, who is head of the Department of Economics and Government at the Le Moyne University. Professor Alexander has had an interesting career. Though a naturalised American citizen, he was born at Moscow and was educated in Russia. England and America. He attended | the Imperial College of Commerce in I Moscow and subsequently was a student at the All Nations Bible College. London, and at the Illinois University, America. He is also an Austin Scholar of Harvard University. For the past six years he has been a news commentator over a number of radio stations.