Josh Claybourn posted an entry today on The Bible and Slavery that ends with the powerful admonition and reminder that it should be Christians that continue to lead the crusade against slavery and oppression everywhere.



Well said, and a fitting day to say it. It was on November 7, 1837 that Elijah Parish Lovejoy, whose arguments in the anti-slavery newspaper The Saint Louis Observer were deeply influenced by The Second Great Awakening, was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending his press.



Lovejoy was valedictorian for his fellow scholars in 1826, the inaugural graduating class of Colby College, and the college each year offers a prize in honor of its distinguished graduate.



The award was given posthumously last year to Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal writer who, on his way to interview a Muslim leader in Pakistan in January 2002, was taken prisoner and murdered by thugs incensed alike by his commitment to freedom and by the fact that he was an American and a Jew.



The meeting in Faneuil Hall in Boston in December, 1837 on the subject of Elijah Lovejoy's murder by the Alton mob was the occasion of one of the great addresses in the history of American liberty, the extemporaneous remarks and exhortations that made the reputation of the great abolitionist Wendell Phillips.