00:00You want me to look?
00:01Yeah, yeah.
00:01Okay, okay.
00:03I've just written a book about an 18th century Quaker named Benjamin Lay,
00:09who was one of the first people to demand the worldwide abolition of slavery.
00:15His entire life was a fight for enlightenment.
00:20He was born in poor circumstances in England.
00:24He went to work as a sailor and went around the world.
00:28He visited the slave society of Barbados and became committed to the abolition of slavery.
00:36Then he waged a campaign for the last many years of his life
00:42to convince his fellow Quakers that they must abolish slavery.
00:47So enlightenment was something that he really had to struggle for.
00:51He had to learn to read and write and learn about the world as a sailor.
00:58He became a cosmopolitan by sailing around the world, working in a motley crew of people,
01:04and then encountering the struggles of enslaved Africans in Barbados.
01:10So Benjamin Lay was a gender-conscious, race-conscious, class-conscious,
01:19environmentally-conscious man, who lived almost 300 years ago.
01:25And I wrote this book because I think, in fact, he is the kind of thinker who can help us
01:31now
01:32as we try to enlighten ourselves to imagine a better future.
01:37We'll see you next time.
01:39We'll see you next time.
01:40We'll see you next time.
