New Wilberforce film inspires new abolitionist movement

Amazing Grace Sunday: News from the National Council of Churches.

Two hundred years after the British Empire abolished slavery – and 144 years after the Emancipation Proclamation – an estimated 27 million people around the world are living in slavery.

This winter, as a new film tells the story of Amazing Grace, the hymn written by a reformed slave trader, a new abolitionist movement is being mounted to end slavery forever. Tens of thousands are planning to launch this effort February 18 on Amazing Grace Sunday.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the British Parliament's act to end the sale of human beings in its empire. The act did not end the slave trade between Africa and the Americas but it set a political precedent and a moral standard for the rest of the world.