Bury the Chains

We cannot imagine citizen activism without boycotts, mass mailings, political posters, lapel buttons, or media campaigns. Yet all these weapons were invented or perfected by a printer, a lawyer, a cleric, several merchants, and a musician who ?rst convened in a London bookshop in 1787. Their goal: to end slavery in the largest empire on earth. They combined ?ery devotion with uncanny skill at stoking public opinion. Within ?ve years, more than 300,000 Britons were boycotting the chief slave-made product, sugar, and London"s smart set was sporting antislavery badges created by Josiah Wedgwood. This crusade was spearheaded by a striking array of personalities, among them Olaudah Equiano, an ex-slave whose memoir made him famous; John Newton, a former slave ship captain who wrote "Amazing Grace"; and Thomas Clarkson, a pioneering investigative journalist who worked for ?fty years to see the day when a slave whip and chains were formally buried in a Jamaican churchyard.