The Grumpy Vegan has at last been able to watch “Amazing Grace”, which is about William Wilberforce and the campaign to lobby the British parliament to ban the slave trade in 1807. It’s a good movie, striking a fair balance between telling the story and dramatizing it for the screen. The film’s Web site has some excellent resources too.
In addition to the film, I also recommend Adam Hochschild’s Bury the Chains. It’s a compelling account of the history of Britain’s campaign to end the slave trade. But what makes it different is Hochschild’s narrative discusses Wilberforce et al and their tactics and strategies from a contemporary perspective. Two hundred plus years later there’s a distinct similarity in the art of campaigning between then and now. Sobering.
There’s also Steve Wise’s Though the Heavens May Fall, which I also want to read. The book’s focus is the 1772 trial of James Somerset, a black man rescued from a ship bound for the West Indies slave markets, and its outcome that precipitates the abolition of the slave trade.
There’s a lot to learn from studying social movements past and present.
