In the afternoon, on May 22, the British movement to end the transatlantic slave trade began. The year was 1787. It remains one of the most significant dates in the global movement to end slavery to this day.
Two years prior, in 1785, a young man named Thomas Clarkson learned about slavery while a Cambridge University student. It changed the course of his life. With the inherent makings of an activist, he began looking for someone in London to publish an antislavery essay he had written in order to reach a broader audience on the subject. That is when he encountered 40-year old James Phillips, a Quaker who ran a printing shop and bookstore at 2 George Yard in London. Phillips was already engaged in abolitionist efforts and knew Granville Sharp—the pioneering self-taught lawyer who, 14 years prior, was the force behind the landmark case of Somerset v. Stewart, setting legal precedent for the rights of those enslaved. Phillips introduced Clarkson and Sharp. Phillips also published Clarkson’s essay in 1786, and continued introducing the young firebrand to others already engaged in abolition’s cause throughout England and America within the Quaker network. Different pieces of the abolitionist puzzle were falling into place, and it was time to bring everyone together.
That happened on May 22, 1787, in the upper room of Phillips’s print shop and bookstore at 2 George Yard. Twelve men gathered that afternoon to form the inaugural Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Sharp, Clarkson, Phillips, Quakers and Anglicans, and an American were among them. The meeting minutes, in Clarkson’s handwriting, are only one page in length and committed those gathered to end the slave trade.
Others with important roles to play toward slavery’s end would join abolition’s cause later: William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano, Hannah Moore, James Stephen, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Heyrick, and thousands upon thousands of ordinary citizens around the world. These abolitionists did not always agree in approach, philosophy, rhetoric, method, or timeline. The end of slavery was their goal. Not complete uniformity. They were humble enough to realize they needed the skills and talents of everyone along the way, and were willing to critique when necessary. They remained faithful until the end to the beautiful vision they had of freedom for their fellow humans.
That said, the ideals flowing out of this initial committee meeting took decades to realize. The George Yard meeting did not stop with men agreeing that slavery was wrong. It resulted in practical and innovative actions they sustained over decades in pursuit of freedom. They moved the convicting ideas of freedom into action within society, the marketplace, and the law. It came at great personal cost and effort over years of setback, disappointment, and frustration. But they continued in their purpose anyway until March 1807 when the first victory finally came with the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. In 1833, those still alive from that initial George Yard meeting finally saw emancipation and the ban of the slave trade in the United Kingdom. Two hundred and thirty-nine years later, the world agrees with the 12 men at George Yard and has passed numerous laws against slavery. Today’s progress is because of that initial meeting at 2 George Yard in May 1787, which set the wider movement to end slavery in motion.
May 22, 2026, invites all of us to take the ideas of freedom and engage with injustice around us. Are we willing to shop with a freedom mindset by paying higher prices for goods so that our clothing, chocolate, seafood, produce, and household items are slave-free? Are we bringing human trafficking to the forefront with our elected officials and leaders as something that matters to us? Are we financially supporting the organizations that are actively engaging in thoughtful, practical ways to stop human trafficking? The possibilities for meaningful ways to be part of the solution are there, regardless of the season or stage of life we find ourselves in.
On this “George Yard Day,” may we commit to finishing the task passed on to us by living and working in the direction of freedom.
No matter how long it takes.
