James Stout

One of Equiano's friends is a writer and a lawyer who's also like an early abolitionist named Granville Sharp.

And Sharp is going to be the second of our heroes for this episode.

One of the coolest dudes to ever live.

Really like just an actual great man.

Born in Durham in 1735, Granville was the middle-ish child of 14.

Five of his eight older brothers survived early childhood, which means his parents were better than average.

His family was working class, and as a youth, he was apprenticed to the owner of a fabric store.

However, he turned out to be one of those kids who's just like irrepressibly smart, right?

Like he is not going to work at the fabric store, you know?

Yeah.

In Granville, this expresses itself.

He's a debate kid.

He's the good kind of debate kid, but he has this pathological need to debate with his peers to the extent he is so committed to this that he makes a Jewish friend, and they start having good-natured arguments about religion.

And because he wants to argue better with his Jewish friend, he learns Hebrew and becomes a fluent speaker of Hebrew in order to argue about the Torah with his Jewish friend.

Yeah, that's perfect, actually.

Yeah.

When he makes a friend who's a member of a weird Greek Christian sect, he learns Greek for the same reason.

Like again, like Equiano, he's one of these guys who just picks up languages.

He's just crazy smart.

Yeah.