Offered a job as a maid in London, she arrived at the address she’d been given and was locked into what turned out to be a brothel. When a teenaged girl named Annie Swan showed up at the Salvation Army headquarters in May of 1885, Booth took on, one of the vilest practices of the day: The trafficking of children.Īnnie’s tale is tragically familiar to those who battle trafficking today. Seeing men sleeping under a bridge one winter day, he immediately directed his son to rent a warehouse, find a way to heat it, buy some blankets, and invite homeless men to sleep there at night. In 1870, he founded Food for the Millions, offering healthy, inexpensive meals for the hungry. While he was concerned with their souls, he soon became aware of their desperate struggle for survival. If he saw a social problem, it did not occur to him to ignore it, or assume someone else would solve it.įrom a young age, he preached to the poor in the streets of the slums. I recently researched the life of one of these heroes, who began fighting social evils more than 150 years ago: William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.īooth-a tall, thin man with flowing white locks–was the William Wilberforce of the Victorian era. To the frustration of their opponents, they simply refused to quit.

In some cases, a small handful of heroic leaders devoted their entire lives to fighting some great evil. In the U.S., they won the battle against child labor-after a 100-year battle. In England, they won against the slave trade-after 46 years of efforts. I have hope, because history teaches that when people spend decades fighting social evils, they usually win. I have hope because Americans determined to protect preborn children have not given up, even after nearly five decades. While the Supreme Court decision was a disappointment, I have reason to hope. This means I have witnessed the battle to protect unborn babies for all the 47 years it has been fought. I am old enough to remember when abortion was illegal in America. The Supreme Court recently shot down Louisiana’s law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital-a law intended to protect women’s lives, given that so many of the worst doctors go into the abortion business.

The forces of darkness