Sunday, February 25, 2007

Wilberforce and the Roots of Freedom

David J. Theroux, founder and president of the Indepent Institute just e-mailed me this excellent article on William Wilberforce by Jonathan Bean:

William Wilberforce is one of the great forgotten men of history. But, all that is about to change as America marks Black History Month with Amazing Grace, the remarkable new film that opened nationwide on February 23rd. Amazing Grace commemorates the bicentennial of the British ban on the slave trade (1807), an antislavery movement led by Wilberforce. Without him, there would have been no end to the slave trade, certainly not in his time. And without his life-changing conversion to Christianity, Wilberforce might have lived a forgettable life as a rich man’s son. Instead, he helped give birth to new freedom in the British Empire, hope in America, and inspiration to abolitionists everywhere. Today, with slavery spreading in Africa and Asia, and, according to Amnesty International, an estimated 27 million in slavery worldwide, Amazing Grace is more than a period piece: it is a timely and enduring lesson on what one man can do to stop the spread of evil.

Read the whole thing!

See my previous posts on William Wilberforce and "Amazing Grace":

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