John Newton

…In 1788, Newton published a pamphlet, Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he described the horrible conditions on the slave ships, and wrote that “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” He joined in the efforts of William Wilberforce and other abolitionists in Parliament to outlaw the slave trade, and he lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act on March 25, 1807. Nine months later, he died in London, the city of his birth.

John Newton is best remembered today as the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” In 1982, 175 years after his death, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.…