David Walker
David Walker was a free black man, born in Wilmington, North Carolina
on September 28, 1785. After traveling extensively in the South and
observing first-hand the effects of slavery, he came to Boston in 1827.
Here he opened a shop on Brattle Street where he sold both new and
second-hand clothing. White clothing dealers tried to force him out of
business, and Walker and two other black clothing dealers were subjected
to police harassment. In 1828, they were indicted and tried for receiving
stolen goods. Walker and one of the others were acquitted, and charges
against the third were dropped.
Walker quickly became involved in the black community, working to
improve education for black children, establish black churches, and
increase employment opportunities for blacks. He became a leader in the
Massachusetts General Colored Association, an organization founded in 1826
to abolish slavery and improve racial conditions for blacks. He was
Boston's agent and occasional contributor to Freedom's Journal, or Right of
All, as it was re-named by Samuel Cornish in 1829, after Russworm resigned
and went to Liberia. Walker is remembered, however, for a pamphlet that he published in
1829. Known as Walker's Appeal, the full title of the seventy-six
page pamphlet was Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles: Together with a
Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and
very expressly, to those in the United States of America, written in
Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. The four articles
mentioned in the title address four separate issues: Article 1 deals with
slavery and its evil consequences; Article 2, with the black's lack of
education; Article 3 addresses the upholding of the slave system by the
Christian ministry, and Article 4 is concerned with the colonization plan.
Much of Walker's appeal is addressed particularly to slaves, urging them to
rise up and take the freedom due them, by any means possible.
Never make an attempt to gain our freedom or natural right, from
under our cruel oppressors and murderers, until you see your way
clear--when that hour arrives and you move, be not afraid or dismayed...
...if you commence...kill or be killed. Now, I ask you, had you not rather
be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your
mother, wife and dear little children?...believe this, that it is no more
harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you
to take a drink of water when thirsty...
Walker also addressed part of his message to white Americans:
If
any are anxious to ascertain who I am, know the world, that I am one of
the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered so by the
avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites. If any wish to plunge me into
the wretched incapacity of a slave, or murder me for the truth, know ye,
that I am in the hand of God, and at your disposal. I count my life not
dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment. For what is the
use of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as
miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding,
and in this generation, to support you and your families, that some of you
(whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever
were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves!!! My colour will
yet, root some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!
The Appeal was the most militant and inflammatory anti-slavery
document that had ever been published, and response to it was immediate
and intense. The South was enraged; a reward was offered for
Walker--$1,000 dead or $10,000 alive. Georgia and South Carolina passed
laws against incendiary publications--Georgia made the circulation of such
documents a capital offense. The governor of Georgia and the mayor of
Savannah sent letters to Boston's mayor urging him to suppress the
publication. The mayor replied that he didn't like the pamphlet either, but
that no law had been broken and there was nothing he could do.
Four blacks were arrested in New Orleans for distributing the
"diabolical Boston pamphlet." The vigilance committee of South Carolina
offered a $1,500 reward for the arrest of anyone distributing The
Appeal. The document came under attack even among northerners and
abolitionists; Benjamin Lundy claimed it would injure the cause, Samuel
May attributed to it a rise in southern fury against the Abolitionist; Garrison, however,
referred to it as "one of the most remarkable productions of the age" and
the "forerunner of the Abolition struggle." Reaction against Walker was so strong that he was urged to go to Canada
but he insisted on remaining in Boston, in spite of, or perhaps because
of, the furor aroused by The Appeal. It was in its third printing
in 1830, when Walker's body, possibly dead of poisoning, was found outside
his shop. Although he had been in Boston only three years, Walker left his
mark on the city and on the anti-slavery movement. He also left a son,
Edward Garrison Walker, who became a lawyer prior to the Civil War, and in 1866 was
elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing
Charlestown. He and Charles L. Mitchell, elected at the same time, were
the first blacks to sit on any state legislature.
Taken from: The African Meeting House in Boston: A
Sourcebook, by William S. Parsons & Margaret A. Drew
©The
Museum of Afro American History.
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