While I will not go see the movie Superman Returns -- whose producers believed that his credo, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," was just too bigoted and imperialistic -- I am getting excited about a movie from my own company , Walden Media. It's called Amazing Grace: The William Wilberforce Story. William Wilberforce led a tireless crusade to rid Britain of the slave trade. Here's just a small part of his biography on Wikipedia,
Wilberforce decided to pursue the career of politics so he spent about nine thousand pounds to get elected as a member of parliament for Hull. In 1784, William was converted to Evangelical Christianity. Wilberforce now became interested in social reform, in particular improving working conditions in factories. Millions of men, women and children had no choice but to work sixteen hours, six days a week in grim factories. People had come to the cities to find work but had been exploited and crowded together in filthy apartments. Here, they could easily catch cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis.
Eventually, Lady Middleton ... approached Wilberforce and asked him to use his power as an MP to stop the slave trade. Wilberforce wrote "I feel the great importance of the subject and I think myself unequal to the task allotted to me," but he agreed to do his best. On 12 May 1789, Wilberforce made his first speech against the slave trade. He was now seen as one of the leaders of the anti-slave trade movement.
His is a great life of radical change and a testimony to the changing power of Jesus Christ. If the art on the site gives anything away, it looks like they're including this part of the story, which will make for an awesome movie! The only hitch is that it won't be out until early next year, but some things are worth waiting for.
We read the Wilber Wilberforces autobiography a couple of years ago in our Sonlight Curiculum and I was amazed that I had never heard of him before! This will make an awesome movie! Keep us posted.
Saturday, July 8, 2006 - Please don't give Wilberforce all of the credit, he was ONE of 12
Posted by Anonymous
Please don't give Wilberforce all of the credit, he was ONE of 12 men who formed a committee to stop slavery. He would not have been successful without the other 11 members of the committee. The following book review shows how all of the men on the committee were necessary to achieve their final success.
Early in 2005, Houghton Mifflin published Adam Hochschild's latest book, Bury the Chains, in which the author documents the amazing accomplishments of a committee of twelve men who decided in 1787 to stop English slave trading. They not only ended slave trading, in 1838 they also abolished human bondage in the British Empire. The title of the book refers to the symbolic burying of chains and whips in Jamaica in 1838, after slavery was eradicated.
Hochschild believes the British abolitionists he documented in his book can provide inspiration for people today. He wrote, "Their passion and optimism are still contagious and still relevant to our times, when, in so many parts of the world, equal rights for all men and women seem far distant."
After reading Bury the Chains, I agree with the author, and I suspect you will also.
The struggle described in the book reminds me of the biblical story of David and Goliath. "David" represents the twelve men dedicated to stopping slavery during a period when various forms of it were so extensive. In 1787 only one fourth of the world's population had even limited freedom. "Goliath" represents the leaders of the English government who benefited financially from the slave trade and did not want to give it up. Instead of slingshot and stones, "David" used petition drives, mass propaganda, and lobbying to end British involvement in slave trafficking.
This book illustrates how a few dedicated individuals can make a dramatic difference in the world. I found it difficult to lay the book down because I kept wondering how so few men could accomplish so much.
The author explained why abolitionists were more effective in England than in other parts of the world. The following are a few of the characteristics of life in England in the last few years of the 18th century that contributed to their effectiveness:
· Reading and debating were very popular in England, so it was possible to get people involved in learning about and discussing the topic of slave trading.
· The well-maintained roads and excellent postal system made it easy to send or take messages quickly to any place in England and facilitated activities such as petition drives.
· The Quakers throughout England dedicated themselves to ending slavery and contributed money and a countrywide network of committed men and women to the cause.
The author described some of the ways the twelve members contributed to the committee. Nine of the twelve men were Quakers who believed that all people, regardless of race, had a divine spark inside them and were equal in the eyes of God. At the time most people thought blacks inferior to whites. The Quakers beliefs led them to establish Britains first antislavery society.
The nine Quakers had little success with their antislavery efforts until three Anglican evangelists joined them and they established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The three new members contributed unique talents.
-Granville Sharp, a lawyer, had already been involved with trying to stop slavery for twenty years. He provided the group with experience and helped them with legal matters.
-William Wilberforce, an eloquent member of the British Parliament, presented the committee's case before Parliament every year until it was accepted.
-Thomas Clarkson, an indefatigable Cambridge divinity graduate, devoted himself to the Society for over 50 years. Clarkson, skilled in mass organization, started petition drives, direct mailings, newsletters, boycotts, legal test cases and lobbying in an attempt to pressure the British to stop slave trafficking.
Within five years of the creation of the Society, more than 300,000 Britons refused to eat the major slave-grown product, which was sugar from sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean. Even London's society leaders wore antislavery badges.
In addition to the committee members, other men and women contributed to the cause. John Newton, a former slave ship captain famous for writing the song Amazing Grace, helped to document the brutality of the inhumane trade.
Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, wrote a book about his experiences as a slave. His book helped the citizens of Britain recognize he was a human, just like them, and not the sub human the slavery industry claimed.
In 1807 the British Parliament abolished slave trading and the British began forcing other European nations to give up the trade as well.
Clarkson and his associates assumed that ending the slave trafficking would lead to the freeing of all beings. When this didn't happen, Clarkson helped form the British Anti-Slavery Society, which at first advocated gradual abolition. When planters in the Caribbean refused to make concessions, abolitionists began demanding immediate emancipation. This pressure and continuing slave unrest led Parliament to pass the Emancipation Act in 1833. By 1838 all slaves in the British Empire were set free.
This book is instructive and inspiring. Instructive because it documents the holocaust the Caribbean slaves experienced. Inspiring because it shows that small groups of motivated people can be an incredible influence for good. This story of the twelve men who helped to peacefully eradicate slavery in the British Empire, decades before it was ended in the United States, is truly inspiring.
, Walden Media. It's called Amazing Grace: The William Wilberforce Story. William Wilberforce led a tireless crusade to rid Britain of the slave trade. Here's just a small part of his biography on Wikipedia,
Posted by 
Posted by 
Posted by Anonymous
