Grace Will Lead Me Home

The story of two men and the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’.

Grace Will Lead Me Home tells the story of two men whose lives followed astonishingly similar paths, but whose experiences were astoundingly different. Their stories are told by musicians Angeline Morrison, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, Jon Bickley and narrator John Palmer.

Both men were eleven when home-life ended. Both had sea-faring careers. Both found religion. And both became revered and influential celebrities in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. One was a slave trader. The other was a slave. Today, one is remembered for a song. The other is almost completely forgotten.

John Newton was the captain of a slave trading ship who saw the light and became a preacher. He wrote many hymns, including Amazing Grace, and later became a prominent abolitionist, mentoring William Wilberforce.

Oluadah Equiano was a kidnapped African, shipped to America and sold. He bought his freedom, came to London where he was a founder of the Sons of Africa abolition group, which brought him into the same influential circles as Newton, Wilberforce and other abolitionists.

The tensions and contradictions in their stories, and how much or little we know about them both in 2025 raises many questions.

The show is inspired by one of 2024’s most critically-acclaimed folk albums, ‘Grace Will Lead Me Home’, which featured in Mojo’s and The Morning Star’s Top Ten.

It explores the contrasting but intertwined story of both of them through their original writings, the words of their contemporaries and new and old songs and includes some aspects of history that some people might find difficult.

It is the latest chapter of Jon Bickley’s three-year Arts Council-funded project on the significance and contradictions of Amazing Grace and years of research into Black Folk Music in Britain by Angeline Morrison and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne.