Last evening I watched a great movie, Amazing Grace (2007) – available in DVD from Movie Village. It is based on the true story of William Wilberforce, the British Member of Parliament, who led the battle to enact a statute to end the British slave trade, circa 1800. The saga is one of perseverance set against a backdrop of a challenging personal health situation, and extreme political opposition. It took many years to get the job done but his tenacity is very inspiring. Wonderful to see the triumph of human rights over economic interests! I highly recommend watching this. An intriguing side note is that part of Wilberforce’s inspiration came from his preacher, John Newton, a reformed slave ship captain, who wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace. Interesting to consider too how this fits into the timeline of history of such events as the American Revolution, French Revolution and American Civil War.
I agree George. Fine, fine movie.
ReplyDelete(Note from GB: this is an emailed comment I received from a friend who grew up in Scotland)
ReplyDeleteWilberforce was a big section in history in school for us.
What they failed to tell us was that it was the British and in particular the English who benefited. The way it was positioned was that the slaves were taken to the Americas so the inference was that it was American and Caribbean landowners who were the bad guys.
Never bothered to mention that the English owned the ships and sold the slaves.