This paper describes and analyzes a Debate-Discussion Learning Project designed to foster student engagement with the subject matter and each other in reflective and analytical dialogues. This project is a significant component of a course, The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, which has a major goal of understanding how the legacy of racial discrimination in the past impacts self and cultural identity. In this essay, I argue that the design of the course and in particular the debate-discussion component, purposely created with a collaborative learning approach, successfully engaged students in substantive discussions of the events of the Civil Rights era and its present-day impact. This paper provides a brief review of literature on collaborative learning; a description of the course and the "Debate-Discussion Learning Project"; an analysis of why the project worked; and, best practices for using debate-discussion across disciplines.