Item
Agent
David Walker (1796-1830)
- Name
- David Walker (1796-1830)
- Date of Birth
- 1796
- Date of Death
- 1830
- State Assigned Gender
- Male
- Hometown or Region
- Wilmington, North Carolina
- Freedom Status
- Free
- Occupation
- Author
- Biography
- David Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on September 28, 1796, to a free mother and an enslaved father, thus making him free. After witnessing slavery firsthand, he would go on to do his part in the abolitionist movement by becoming a member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association and writing one of the most radical literary pieces in American History. This piece is famously known as David Walker’s Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World. In this appeal, Walker criticizes the Founding Fathers for their hypocrisies that the United States claims to be founded upon. Specifically pertaining to the Declaration of Independence’s infamous line that “all men are created equal”. While David Walker may not have lived to see the fruits of his labor, his same sentiments would be seen in other movements for black liberation.
- Revolution Observed
- David Walker’s physical timeline is beyond the Age of Revolutions. However, his literary work explicitly mentions the American and Haitian revolutions. His reference to the American Revolution is more analytical and critical of the movement in that the ideals that America was founded upon only apply to white men with land, completely leaving out everyone else in this country. Walker’s acknowledgement of the Haitian Revolution is out of admiration for the radicalism of it all. He was fascinated by the methods used to accomplish the first free, independent, black nation in the entire world.
- Student Researcher
- Darryl Williams
- Connected Historical Actor(s)
- Denmark Vesey
- Source(s)
-
Peter Hinks, To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren,(Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1997), 1-63.
● Marshall Rachleff, “David Walker’s Southern Agent,” The Journal of Negro History 62,
no. 1 (1977): 100-103.
● Thabiti Asukile “The All-Embracing Black Nationalist Theories of David Walker’s
Appeal,” The Black Scholar 29, no. 4 (1999): 16–24.
● Melvin L Rogers, “David Walker and the Political Power of the Appeal,” Political
Theory 43, no. 2 (2015): 208–233.
● Jennifer L. Morgan, “Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial
Slavery,” Columbia Law Blogs, 55 (2018): 1-18.
● Lawerence Fortenberry “Freedom’s Journal: The First Black Medium,” The Black
Scholar, 3(1974): 33–37.
● Michael P .Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators,” The William and Mary
Quarterly (1958), 4(2001): 137–142.
● Walker, David, “David Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles, Together with a Preamble, to
the Coloured Citizens of the World,” The Liberator, 1829, 9-23.
● Dr. Andrew Maginn “Age of Revolutions,” History 333: Liberation and Repression in
the Age of Revolution, (class lecture, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee,
Tennessee, Tennessee February 12 2025).
● “The Black Panther Ten-Point Program,” The North American Review 253, no. 4 (1968):
16.
● Matin O Ijere, “W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey as Pan-Africanists : A Study in
Contrast.” Présence Africaine, no. 89 (1974): 192.
● Adam Rothman, New Countries:Capitalism, Revolutions, and Nations in the Americas
1750-1870, (Chapel Hill, Duke University Press, 2017), 109. - Click here to review material history sources connected to David Walker