International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

David Walker is often cited as one of the first militants in the African American anti-slavery and civil rights struggle . Born in Wilmington, NC, to a free mother and an enslaved father, and thus free himself, he gained literacy and read extensively on the topics of resistance and revolution. After growing up witnessing the horrors of slavery first hand, including an incident in which a slave was forced to whip his mother until she died, he left the South and eventually settled in Boston, where he opened a used clothing store in the 1820s. While in Boston he made friends with a number of other black activists and became an agent and contributor for the country's first African American newspaper, the New York-based Freedom's Journal. In 1829, Walker put four of his abolitionist articles together and published them as the pamphlet known as Walker's Appeal. This pamphlet caused an immediate stir because it appeared to call for slaves to revolt against their masters. Taken South by the sailors who bought clothes in Walker's store, it immediately frightened and enraged whites, who responded by passing laws forbidding black literacy and the distribution of abolitionist literature. Some states expelled free black settlers, and others offered monetary rewards for Walker's capture or death. What was unique about Walker's pamphlet was that it was one of the first to grapple with the ... log in or subscribe to read full text