| "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see. " | | John Newton |
As part of the college's commemorations, the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend & Rt Hon John Sentamu was preacher at a special service broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Service on 25th February 2007. It was conducted by the Dean of St John’s, the Reverend Duncan Dormor.  | | The horrors of slavery |
An extract from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano' (or Gustavus Vassa the African.') from 1789 was read by Alaffia Maxwell of the London Adventist Chorale. It’s a graphic account of the squalid conditions in which captured Africans found themselves, as they awaited transportation to British colonies.
The parliamentary figurehead of the abolitionists, the MP for Hull, William Wilberforce (who attended St John's in Cambridge), made regular and passionate speeches to his fellow MPs, in his endeavour to enlist their support. He searched tirelessly for new ways to arouse public interest in the campaign - leading to many a sleepless night and eventual ill-health. Wilberforce’s great, great, great, great grandson, Richard, is a recent graduate of St John’s, and he read William’s observations. Then, a moving new anthem had its first performance as St John’s choir, alongside the London Adventist Chorale, sang ‘Let the Sound of Freedom’, specially commissioned from composer Ken Burton. Also sung was Amazing Grace, which is one of the most world’s popular hymns, but probably few people would know it was written by a former slave-trader turned priest and abolitionist. John Newton found himself disgusted by the experience of carrying slaves in his ship and was later able to give abolition campaigners vital evidence of conditions on board. The words express his feelings of self-disgust and despair as he searched for salvation. The service was broadcast to a packed congregation who had gathered together to mark the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act commemorated through song, through story and through prayer. |
