Amazing Grace

In loving memory. Where COVID-19 prevents loved ones from being together during times of mourning.

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Ironically, this stirring song, closely associated with the African-American community, was written by a former slave trader, John Newton. This unlikely authorship forms the basis of Amazing Grace, the new Broadway musical (written by Broadway first-timer Christopher Smith, a former Philadelphia policeman, and playwright Arthur Giron) which tells Newton’s life story from his early days as a licentious libertine in the British navy to his religious conversion and taking up the abolitionist cause. But the real story behind the somewhat sentimental musical, told in Newton’s autobiography reveals a more complex and ambiguous history. Biography. 2020. The Real Story Behind ‘Amazing Grace’. Available at: .