Wilberforce got the statue. This man got the mud. Thirty-five thousand miles of it. His name was Thomas Clarkson. Born in England. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Cambridgeshire. 1760. He was twenty-four years old when Cambridge set him an essay question. "Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?" He knew nothing about slavery. So he started reading. Two months later he couldn't stop. He won the prize and rode home to London with something nobody had given him. A conscience he couldn't put down. Halfway there, on a quiet country road, he stopped his horse. Sat in the silence of the English countryside. The trade was real. He had just proved it. And somebody had to stop it. So he gave up the church and got to work. Bristol. Liverpool. Every slave port in Britain. Into the taverns, the back rooms, the ships. Asking sailors what they had seen below decks. Men who had been there. Who knew what happened on the Middle Passage. Some refused. Some were threatened. Some were bought. Clarkson kept riding. ...