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 ...

Amazing Grace might be the ultimate song of redemption, steeped in two centuries of black history, but its writer had also been a slave ship captain. There is no shortage of versions of Amazing Grace.

“AMAZING GRACE” IS MUCH-LOVED in African American communities and a favorite hymn in Black churches, not least because its words, offering hope and the prospect of better things to come, seem ideally ...