How Important Is An Organization’s Symbol?

William Wilberforce had struggled for more than a decade to end the slave trade in the British Empire. As a member of Parliament, he had argued, debated, organized and tried everything in his power to alter the thinking of the English people, but his struggle seemed endless.

Driven by his Christian faith, and supported by his friend John Newton, a former slave trader himself and the writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” Wilberforce pressed on, trying to get the public to see slavery for the evil it was.

But the slavery business was the largest industry in the Empire, equating to the size and economic importance the defense industry to America today.

Growing ever more frustrated, Wilberforce commissioned Josiah Wedgewood, famed creator of pottery and china, to design a medallion “expressive of an African in chains in a supplicating posture.” The words surrounding the nearly naked man were engraved as a motto: Am I Not A Man And A Brother?

The medallion was created, and the phrase written, to appeal both to Christians and secularists, and it made an immediate impression on British Society.

In 1788, an order of the cameos was shipped to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. Wearing the cameo became a fashion statement for abolitionists and anti-slavery sympathizers in the U.S. Medallions were worn as jewelry of all kinds and mounted like pictures on walls in homes. They also adorned hair combs and snuffboxes.

The general public was enthralled, and the image started to appear in major pamphlets of the day.

Wilberforce’s goal was to focus public opinion on the cruel slave trade, and it worked. Before long, the momentum changed the debate in Parliament, and Wilberforce and his supporters won the day.

The medallion had done what years of debate, intellectual discussion and government action could not do alone. It had helped change the culture and end the slave trade.

When a powerful story and indelible image are connected to a person, cause, product or organization, anything can happen.