William Wilberforce - A Visionary

BBC 4 radio show "In Our Time" showcases the life of William Wilberforce (1759-1833). Wilberforce was in the great minority of 18th century Londoners who could address the British parliament; he chose to use that platform to demand the abolition of slave trade. Wilberforce inspired many future visionaries, including Dr Martin Luther King.

"It is always difficult to employ historical imagination," Melvyn Bragg says, it is easy for people to go around and say "of course the slave trade should've been abolished," but we must try and picture what it was like for this man in the 18th century,

"facing a parliament which was completely entrenched in the notion that slavery was necessary and a good thing and inevitable and in some cases God commanded. It must have taken enormous guts, fearing great failure, to stand up and address the parliament at that time in this measured, reasoned, but underneath it, passionate and convinced way."

Historical imagination is hard.

But what about foresight? Is it easier? On what issues?

What issues might future citizens in the year 2207 consider the "slave trades" of our time?