David Walker (September 28, 1796August 6, 1830) was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well (partus sequitur ventrem). In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge (later named Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Jurisdiction of Massachusetts), he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and a fight against slavery, which James T. Campbell called a "watershed in the history of black nationalism."

The Appeal brought attention to the abuses and inequities of slavery and the responsibility of individuals to act according to religious and political principles. At the time, some people were aghast and fearful of the reaction that the pamphlet would provoke. Southern citizens were particularly upset with Walker's viewpoints and as a result there were laws banning circulation of "seditious publications" and North Carolina's "legislature enacted the most repressive measures ever passed in North Carolina to control slaves and free blacks".

Walker found the oppression of fellow black people unbearable. "If I remain in this bloody land," he later recalled thinking, "I will not live long ... I cannot remain where I must hear slaves' chains continually and where I must encounter the insults of their hypocritical enslavers." Consequently, as a young adult, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, a Mecca for upwardly mobile free black people. He became affiliated with a strong African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) community of activists, members of the first black denomination in the United States. He later visited and likely lived in Philadelphia, a shipbuilding center and location of an active black community, where the AME Church was founded. slavery had been abolished in Massachusetts after the American Revolutionary War. On February 23, 1826, he married Eliza Butler, the daughter of Jonas Butler. Her family was an established black family in Boston. Their children were Lydia Ann Walker (who died July 31, 1830, of lung fever at the age of one year and nine months in Boston),

His son Edward G. Walker (also known as Edwin G. Walker) was born after Walker's death, and in 1866 would become the first black man elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature.

  • The National Park Service has walking tours developed for the Boston African American National Historic Site, including the black Beacon Hill community. The comprehensive narratives include discussion of David Walker, who was integral to the black neighborhood and city activists. An online version of the tour is also available.

See also

  • List of African-American abolitionists

Notes

References

Sources

  • Crockett, Hasan (2001). The Incendiary Pamphlet: David Walker's Appeal in Georgia. The Journal of Negro History (86): 305–318.

Further reading

  • Walker's Appeal, at Documenting the American South
  • David Walker’s Appeal in Virginia, at Virginia Memory
  • WGBH, Africans in America documentary
  • Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the World, ... (Boston, 1830) (online pdf facsimile)