James Leonard Farmer, Sr. (June 12, 1886 – May 14, 1961) was an American author, theologian, educator, and the first African-American Texan to earn a doctorate. Farmer served as a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church and as a professor at several historically black colleges and universities in the U.S. South, most notably Howard University, Rust College, and Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. Aspects of his life are chronicled in the film The Great Debaters, in which he is played by Forest Whitaker.