The man behind the name

William Agency is named for William Wilberforce, who gave his life to a message powerful people did everything they could to stop. His endurance is the standard this agency holds itself to.

Wilberforce came home from Europe with a faith so alive it raised a question he couldn't escape: what was a person of genuine conviction supposed to do with a seat in Parliament? John Newton, the former slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace,” told him to stay, because God had placed him there for exactly this moment.

For twenty years he introduced bill after bill to abolish the British slave trade. He was defeated, mocked, threatened and worn down by an establishment with enormous financial interest in keeping things as they were. When the Slave Trade Act finally passed, the entire House of Commons rose to its feet, and Wilberforce wept.

Ending the trade wasn't the same as ending slavery, so he kept going for twenty-six more years, long past his health and long past his seat in Parliament. On July 26, the Slavery Abolition Act passed its final reading. Three days later, William Wilberforce died.

He dismantled a paradigm about the worth of a human being, the responsibility of power, and what love costs when you take it seriously. He did it by refusing to stop delivering a message the world wasn't ready to receive, until the day it finally was.