New York City Urban Debate League

Empowering students

“While literacy is about the creation of new knowledge, it is also about the creation of empowered students. Literacy does not exist separate from the complicated conversations about access and denial. The urban debate league movement emerged as a bridge across a historical rupture in debate participation by communities that were not white and affluent. The bridge is important because it is a bridge between a community with a historical focus on social justice and a community focused on competitive success.”

– Using Debate in the Classroom (Cridland-Hughes, 2010)