John Newton was a British sailor who once worked on slave ships but later turned his life around. After surviving a violent storm at sea, he felt a deep change in his heart. He left the slave trade, ...

As we look at another New Year’s Day, it’s a good time to reflect on a song that unites rather than divides us: the Rev. John Newton’s hymn “Amazing Grace.” The hymn first appeared in Newton’s New ...

Many people think they know the story of the hymn,"Amazing Grace." The commonly accepted narrative presents its composer, John Newton, a young English captain of a late 18th-century slave ship, as a ...

At the funeral for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a South Carolina state senator who was killed in the church shooting in Charleston, President Obama broke from his eulogy to sing ‘Amazing Grace,’ a song ...

2023 is the 250th anniversary year of "Amazing Grace." It was first performed on New Year's Day, 1773, and has gone through many changes over the years. You know those songs that you just kind of know ...

Amazing Grace. By James Walvin. University of California Press; 216 pages; $19.95 and £16.99 A short but fascinating book by James Walvin, a professor at the University of York and an expert on ...

What do Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday, Woodstock, a Barack Obama speech, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Fannie Lou Hamer’s civil rights marches, The Grand Ole Opry, and American churches have in common? All ...