Amazing Grace

Trailer
One of the songs that has always been one of my favorites, is Amazing Grace. Until now, I did not know the story behind the song. It's amazing.

From Consortium news:
The story really begins in Britain, where an unlikely Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, courageously took up the cause of human emancipation, despite virtually universal opposition.

The son of a wealthy merchant, young Wilberforce led the hedonistic lifestyle of a college student at Cambridge. Bored with his father’s business, he entered Parliament at age 21 and made friends easily.

Five years later, he had a conversion experience leading him to devote his life to freeing those in bondage. In 1791, his bill to abolish the slave trade failed by a wide margin but he persisted. In 1807, Wilberforce released A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade on the eve of Parliament’s overwhelming vote to end the trade in human beings—a remarkable change in fifteen years.

In 1823, “God’s politician” began a ten-year campaign to end slavery entirely, releasing his Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies, in which he claimed that total and unqualified emancipation was a moral and ethical “duty before God."

Wilberforce died in 1833 just as Parliament abolished slavery...Slavery, of course, never fully disappeared. Sadly, millions remain enslaved in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.

Inspired by Wilberforce’s example, the producers of "Amazing Grace" hope to stir public opinion against the slave trade through a web site, www.amazinggracemovie.com, which sponsors “The Amazing Change” to launch “a campaign to abolish modern day slavery and allow children and adults around the world to live in freedom.”

Find a theater near you, and watch this movie. I know I'll be watching this one.