TSU pays loving tribute to legendary debate coach
Mourners say Freeman’s legacy lives on as former students carry on his lessons of dignity, righteousness, perseverance
A group of Texas Southern University alumni took the stage, readying themselves to pay tribute to the man who had taught them it all — Dr. Thomas F. Freeman.
“I commend you for your cree-aye-ti-vi-teh,” they said together, mimicking Freeman’s careful enunciation — their voices bellowing and ricocheting off the TSU arena walls.
“Seven-nine-seven-two!” they yelled, hearkening back to Freeman’s common reminder of his widely known on-campus extension number.
The group, all former students of the internationally renowned debate coach, were paying their respects with some of his favorite performances.
They finished with: “TSU, we won’t give up on you!”
That was the resounding sentiment at the historically black university Tuesday, when hundreds of alumni, government officials, lawmakers and community members — many of them Freeman’s students — gathered to say their goodbyes to commemorate a legacy that spanned more than seven decades.
Freeman, a scholar, trained minister and beloved debate coach, died June 6 of natural causes, his family said. He was just weeks shy of his 101st birthday.
Just minutes before 10 a.m., when Freeman’s public viewing at TSU’s Health &
Physical Education Arena started, a small line of mostly masked attendees waited to enter the building, many cheerful. Attendants at the front welcomed them in, handing out masks to those in need. Social distancing discs placed 6 feet apart on the ground guided guests as they passed photos of Freeman spanning the years.
Previn Jones, a former student and debate team president in 1997, could be found toward the front of the line.
“He taught us by example. … His discipline and commitment to getting things done spilled into my life,” said Jones, who wrote the book “Public Speaking the Freeman Way: The Five Universal Laws of Public Speaking I Learned from the Legendary Dr. Thomas F. Freeman.”
Jones said he met the Houston-based educator on his first day of classes at TSU. Jones remembers getting into trouble and in fights during high school, but suddenly, there he was in “legendary Dr. Freeman’s office.” He said the weight of Freeman’s legacy gave him a sense of responsibility and pressure to best represent his new teacher. He later traveled with Freeman to London where he won first place in a debate competition.
“If you wanted to learn, he’d teach you,” Jones said. “He took students from the neighborhoods, raw talent, and turned them into debaters.”
‘Mentor, a man of God’
The memorial service began with music by a vocalist and a rotating lineup of musicians on the piano as people paid their respects. Freeman, in red and black doctoral regalia, rested at the front in a white casket topped with a bed of red roses. Behind was a slideshow of clips showing Freeman delivering speeches and photos of him with family, friends and colleagues — often with him sporting a big smile.
Freeman’s daughter, Dr. Carlotta Freeman,
and son, Thomas Freeman Jr., presented first. They expressed their gratitude for the celebration of their father, a man often referred to as “famous, a mentor, a man of God, an orator of the ages,” but who, at home, was just dad to them, they said.
Other speakers included Freeman’s former students, those he mentored and those whom he coached, including Mayor Sylvester Turner, U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis and state Reps. Senfronia Thompson and Jarvis D. Johnson.
Speakers kept true to Freeman’s standards throughout the funeral service — remembering to enunciate their words and to speak succinctly and to stay under their allotted time. Freeman hated long funerals, according to his children. A timer, typically set for 2 minutes, sat in front of the stage to serve as a friendly reminder.
Turner delivered a proclamation of June 16 as “Dr. Thomas Franklin Freeman Day” in Houston. Jackson Lee and Green both presented resolutions for Freeman, and Jackson Lee announced that she would introduce legislation that, if passed, would proclaim Freeman as “the greatest teacher the nation has ever seen” and “the longest-serving teacher in the U.S.”
Jackson Lee said she was having a difficult time with Freeman’s death. She emphasized that she couldn’t imagine the campus without seeing Freeman or hearing his baritone voice, but said she was happy that Freeman had helped people achieve their dreams and mentored “kingmakers” and “tree-shakers” — people who will move the world.
“In this moment, this nation cries out for justice, one thing I know about Dr. Freeman, he lived through his words. … He taught us dignity, righteousness. He taught us we are somebody,” said Jackson Lee.
“We all know 8 minutes and 46 seconds,” Jackson Lee said, referring to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black
“If you wanted to learn, he’d teach you. He took students from the neighborhoods, raw talent, and turned them into debaters.”
Previn Jones, a former student and debate team president
man who grew up in Third Ward and died while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. “But do we know 70 years of facing the injustices? And yet (Freeman) stood and helped those who came into these classes … to never have a dream denied.”
Powerful lessons
Ellis, also a former student of Freeman, said the debate coach used his voice to speak out on issues that matter, including racism and discrimination, a quality carried over to his many students.
“He may be gone in the flesh, but he is here in the power of the lessons that he’s taught,” Ellis said.
Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, also in attendance, expressed his admiration for Freeman — a man who taught longer than he has lived — and the educator’s love of the spoken word.
“He understood it was an art,” Patrick said. “Dr. Freeman was to speech the same as Beethoven was to music or Michelangelo was to painting. He was a virtuoso, he was a genius. He was a master.”
More than that, though, Freeman loved his students — dedicating much of his extraordinary gift to helping others, Patrick said.
Georgia Provost, a community activist, TSU alumna and friend of the Freeman family, announced plans to erect a statue of Freeman on campus and encouraged attendees to donate money to the HBCU, which has been a safe space and a place of growth for thousands.
Yolanda Adams, Freeman’s former student and a Grammy Award-winning singer, sang “Never Give Up.”
Antre’chelle Dorsey, who was Freeman’s first female debate team president in 2017 through 2019, said she and other students were planning Freeman’s 101st birthday celebration before he died. She laughed thinking about how adamant he was about them never hosting a party prior to his actual birth date, but her last memory of him brought her to tears.
“He opened his arms, and said “I miss you! I miss you so much,’” said Dorsey, humbled that with his many students, he still remembered her name. “It will always stick with me.”
In addition to naming its Honors College for Freeman since 2009, the university launched a donation-based memorial fund for the TSU Debate Team in Freeman’s honor. It is designed to help continue the program he founded 71 years ago. (For more information on Freeman’s memorial fund, visit the TSU website.)
Freeman’s legacy at TSU’s Third Ward campus spanned eight decades. He joined TSU’s faculty in 1949 to teach philosophy and planned to return to Richmond, Va., to be the pastor at Carmel Baptist Church there. But after Freeman assigned students a debate in a logic course, the thenpresident of the university persuaded him to stay permanently as the debate coach.
Three months later, TSU’s debate squad bested opponents from Harvard University and the University of Chicago.
Freeman quickly became a legend on the campus, training students and celebrities alike in forensic speech, the study of public speaking and debate.
He worked with the late U.S. Reps. Mickey Leland and Barbara Jordan, actor Denzel Washington, who sought out Freeman’s expertise to coach the cast of the Golden Globe-nominated film “The Great Debaters,” among others, and led students in dozens of debate championships across the world.