The Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture and Oxford Centre for Baptist Studies are pleased to be project partners in the Sam Sharpe Project which has been created to explore and to promote the story and the legacy of Sam Sharpe.
Sam Sharpe was a Baptist deacon. His story is that of a Christian whose actions were clearly motivated by his faith and by his reading of scripture; he is reported to have said, “In reading my Bible, I found that the white man had no more right to make a slave of me than I have to make a slave of the white man”.
He remains a witness to the principle of ‘liberation from below’: that is, true liberation comes when those who are oppressed or marginalized participate in making their own freedom and justice, rather than simply having it granted to them by those who have power and authority.
This is what the Project identifies as the ‘legacy’ of Sam Sharpe today.
18th October 2023 — Professor Anthony Reddie, Director, Centre for Religion and Culture, Regent’s Park College, Oxford. At Whitelands College, University of Roehampton.
Wale Hudson-Roberts – Justice Enabler, Baptists Together
Rosemarie Davidson-Gotobed – Sam Sharpe Lecture Founder
Karl Johnson – Former General Secretary, Jamaica Baptist Union
Christine Joynes – Regent’s Park College, Oxford
Kang-San Tan – BMS World Mission
Eleasah Roberts – Sam Sharpe Project, academic support
Past Lectures
2022 — Professor Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. Bringing Down the House. Watch here
2021 — Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, CEO of Christian Aid. Setting The Captives Free – forging the paths to freedom. Watch the lecture here.
2020 — Bishop Wilton Powell OBE. Man Against the System. Watch the webinar here.
2019 — Professor Verene Shepherd, Professor of Social History, University of the West Indies. Women in Sam Sharpe’s Army: Repression, Resistance, Reparation. Watch here.
2018 — Right Rev Dr Rose Hudson-Wilkins, Bishop of Dover and former Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons
2017 — Rev Karl Johnson, former General Secretary, Jamaica Baptist Union.
2016 — Rev Bev Thomas
2015 — Rev Joel Edwards, former General Director, Evangelical Alliance
2014 — Dr Delroy Reid-Salmon
2013 — Rev Neville Callum, former General Secretary, Baptist World Alliance.
2012 — Professor Robert Beckford
Publications
The Centre for Baptist Studies has published two occasional papers relating to Sam Sharpe:
- Samuel Sharpe and the Meaning of Freedom (2012), Horace O. Russell
- Kissing the Book: The Story of Sam Sharpe as Revealed in the Records of the National Archives at Kew (2013) by Larry J. Kreitzer