Walker's Appeal
Also known as An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America
David Walker's 1829 pamphlet calling on Black Americans to unite and fight slavery.
At a glance
Key ideas
"We are MEN", Worse than ancient slavery, Move, do not wait …
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- Walker published the Appeal in Boston in September 1829, addressed to Black people, enslaved or free.
- It describes the cruelty of American slavery and the hypocrisy of a nation that called itself Christian and free.
- It answers Thomas Jefferson's claims of Black inferiority and urges readers to act against their oppression.
- Southern states banned it as seditious, and most abolitionists of the time found it too radical.
Why it matters
- Historian James T.
- Campbell called it a "watershed in the history of black nationalism"; it is read as an early foundation of Black political thought in the United States.
Key facts
- Author
- David Walker1
- Published
- 1829-09, Boston, with the help of the African Grand Lodge1
- Editions
- A second and a third edition in 1830; the second stated his views more strongly than the first1
- 1848 reprint
- By Henry Highland Garnet, with the first biography of Walker1
- Distribution
- Through Black networks along the Atlantic coast: activists, laborers, churches, benevolent societies and maroon communities1
- Suppression
- Called seditious across the South; people were arrested for distributing it in Charleston and New Orleans1
Key ideas
-
"We are MEN"1
Unless Black Americans refute Jefferson's arguments about them, Walker writes, they will only establish them.
-
Worse than ancient slavery1
He compares American slavery with Egypt, Sparta and Rome and finds the Christian nation's the cruellest.
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Move, do not wait1
Readers must act to claim their freedom rather than wait for God to fight for them.
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Read it aloud1
The literate were asked to read the Appeal to those who could not.
-
Freedom is not a gift1
Whites who freed slaves were only returning what they had taken, so deserved no gratitude.
Connections
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