World-renowned debate coach, philosopher, minister, and orator Thomas Freeman was born Thomas Franklin Freeman on June 27, 1919, in Richmond, Virginia, to Louis H. Freeman Sr. and Louise E. Willis. Young Thomas preached his first sermon at nine years old. He had seven brothers and three sisters.
Freeman graduated from Armstrong High School in 1934 at 15 and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Virginia Union University in Richmond at 20 in 1939. He then taught religion at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of his students. The following year, in 1948, he completed a Bachelor of Divinity from Andover Newton Seminary in Massachusetts and later that year earned a Doctor of Philosophy in homiletics from the University of Chicago. In 1963, Freeman completed postdoctoral studies in German at the Universität Wien, the oldest German-speaking university in Austria.
Freeman was invited to teach philosophy at Texas Southern University (TSU) in 1949, two years after the institution’s establishment. Soon afterward, he became the director of the institution’s debate team. His students at TSU included future members of Congress, Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland, both from Houston.
From 1968 to 1980, Freeman directed TSU’s Weekend College. In 1994, Freeman became the first African American faculty and guest professor at Rice University in Houston, where he taught Ethical Dimensions and Social and Ethical Problems. He was invited to teach at Rice and his tenure was approved upon his arrival. While at Rice, he designed his courses, which started small but quickly grew in popularity.
In 2007, legendary actor Denzel Washington selected Freeman as a consultant to work with the actors in the film The Great Debaters, a story of the Wiley College debate team in the 1930s that won a national championship over the all-white Harvard University debate team. The movie earned a Golden Globe “Best Picture” nomination.
In 2017, Freeman led the TSU Debate Team to Lima, Peru, where they won the 27th annual International Forensics Association Harry Strine Award. The following year, 2018, another Freeman-led TSU Team successfully defended its title in Berlin, Germany. They also traveled to London, Madrid, Montreal, Prague, and Pretoria and, at all locations, won five first-place awards.
In 2019, Freeman led TSU debaters at the HBCU National Speech and Debate Championship, hosted at Tennessee State University in Nashville, including Howard University and Wiley College. They brought home 45 trophies and eight first-place honors, winning the Championship for two consecutive years.
A recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Freeman holds the Doctor of Humane Letters from Eastern Massachusetts University and the Doctor of Divinity from Bishop King Theological Seminary in Southlake, Texas.
Thomas Freeman, who was married to Clarice Estell Freeman for 66 years and had three children, Dr. Carlotta Freeman, Carter E. Freeman, and Thomas F. Freeman Jr. Thomas Freeman, died in Houston on June 6, 2020, at the age of 100.
There are historical markers in Freeman’s honor throughout TSU’s campus, including in front of Hannah Hall, the John T. Biggers Art Center, the School of Public Affairs, and the new campus Library Learning Center in his honor. In 2022, the Texas Historical Commission (THC) posthumously awarded Dr. Thomas F. Freeman an Official Texas Historical Marker for his legacy as an award-winning debate coach at TSU.
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“Legendary debate coach, Dr. Thomas F. Freeman Sr., dies at 100,” www,richmondfreepress.com;
“Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice,” www.alumni.rice.edu;
“Welcome to the Thomas F. Freeman Honors College,” www.tsu.edu.
