Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is well renowned as a beautiful and powerful song, but there is also a movie by the same name, I first heard about it a few years back as part of a final for my persuasive writing class. I put the movie somewhere on my list of movies to see, but clearly I wasn't in a huge hurry to see it. Recently the movie has be brought to my remembrance a few times and I recently borrowed it from a friend. I watched the movie yesterday and it was amazing, a wonderfully made movie about a powerful and captivating story.
The movie chronicals the movement to abolish slavery in England, focusing on the life of William Wilberforce who was one of the most integral people in the movement. Wilberforce was a member of parliament (MP) in the house of commons and he and those who he worked with, worked for years to abolish slavery, despite being shut down time and time again. After watching this movie I wanted to have everyone I knew see this movie. I wasn't conscious of it being Black History Month when I watched this movie but apparently it is and I think it was a good way to commemorate this month. It's also striking to me that as far as I know, this movement to abolish slavery was mostly peaceful, unlike our own civil war, fought largely over issues of slavery.
Wilberforce found religion, so to speak, at a point in his life when his political opportunities were stretching out before him and he was torn as to whether he should serve God or continue in politics, and it was put to him that he could do both by working to make the world a better place. While the rest of us may not have the same opportunities or challenges as William Wilberforce, we have the same opportunity to use what we have to work to make the world a better place.