Abolitionist Teen Speaks Out Against Modern-day Slavery

by Jana Riess, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 2/21/2007

He's spoken to hundreds of thousands of people all around the United States. He's raised thousands of dollars to fight slavery in countries that some Americans have never even heard of. His book, Be the Change (Zondervan), released February 9.

Did we mention he's just 15 years old?

Zach Hunter confesses to watching the occasional episode of American Idol and to needing reminders to set a good example for his 8-year-old brother. But he's also a zealous activist whose passion runs deep on the issue of slavery today. "Three years ago, when I was 12, I found out that there are 27 million slaves in the world today," said Hunter, sitting in a hotel restaurant in Indianapolis. "I felt I had to do something for them, because just feeling bad wasn't going to end slavery." The seventh-grader's solution was to start Loose Change to Loosen Chains, which raised more than $10,000 by having kids donate spare change.

The Georgia boy is now a high school freshman whose campaign is just getting bigger: he is the global youth spokesperson for Walden Media's Amazing Change campaign, which aims to use the new biopic Amazing Grace to educate people that the abolition movement is just as needed today as it was in William Wilberforce's time.

Hunter told RBL he "used to be a pretty shy person. I was deathly afraid to get up in front of a class and do a book report. But now I don't usually get nervous speaking in front of people."

That's a good thing, as Hunter has more work ahead for the Amazing Change campaign and now will be busy promoting his own book. It was solicited by Youth Specialties, a division of Zondervan. "Youth Specialties has always been on the lookout for books by teens for teens, but they'd never done one before," said Zondervan's John Topliff. Hunter reports that he enjoyed writing it, but it was a challenge to meet the fast deadline and churn out the book in just 45 days. "I had to come home from school every day and start writing right away. It was sort of hard to balance the writing with school in October and November." His mother, Penny Hunter, helped with the outline and also travels with him on his speaking engagements.

Hunter recognizes that most people are surprised by his youth, but he's unfazed by it, pointing out that many of the 27 million slaves for whom he's advocating are kids even younger than he is. His book tells the stories of some of these children, as well as the inspiring tales of activists of old, like Wilberforce and Harriet Tubman, whom Hunter sees as heroes.

His youth is an asset, according to Hunter. "I think as you get older, you become more familiar with reality, and it just doesn't seem realistic that you can abolish slavery," he said. "That's why I had this movement be student-led, because adults, as nice as they are, can sometimes be wet blankets. But since students are resource-poor and have passion, and adults are often passion-poor and have a lot of resources, together we can be a deadly combination."