David Walker (abolitionist)

David Walker (born September 28, 1785 in Wilmington , North Carolina , † June 28, 1830 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was a black, American abolitionist .

Life

Walker was born a free black in North Carolina - although David Walker's father, who died before he was born, was enslaved, his mother was a free woman. Little is known from his early years of life. In the 1820s he made a living from a second-hand clothing store that he opened. In Boston, Walker met black civil rights activists and worked on Freedom's Journal in New York City , the first African-American newspaper to be published by Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm . He developed an intense and persistent hatred of slavery early on, apparently the result of his travels and first-hand knowledge of slavery. Active in helping the poor and needy, including runaway slaves, soon gained a reputation within the Boston black community for his generosity and benevolence. He was also a notable member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association , an anti-slavery and civil rights organization founded in 1826. In lectures before the association, Walker spoke against slavery and colonization.

In September 1829 he published a pamphlet entitled Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World , which was addressed to enslaved women and men in the south. Because of Walker's appeal , which gave many slaves hope of one day being set free, plantation owners offered a bounty of $ 3,000 for anyone who killed Walker and $ 10,000 for anyone who would bring him back alive. The circulation of the roll call in the south through the summer of 1830 caused great excitement, particularly in Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. In Walker's hometown of Wilmington, copies were smuggled out of Boston or New York on ships. Concern soon spread among whites in Fayetteville, New Bern, Elizabeth City, and other cities in the state.

In June 1830, not long after the third edition of Appeal was published , David Walker was found dead in his home. Many believe he was poisoned, although there is no evidence to back it up. Other sources, such as the American historian Nell Irvin Painter , believe that David Walker died of tuberculosis after his daughter died of the disease just days before him.

Walker's appeal was probably the first printed manifestation of black nationalism in the United States . It was condemned by many as extremist and even condemned by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879).

In 1828 married a woman named Eliza. They had a son, Edward (or Edwin) Garrison Walker, who was born after David Walker's death in 1830.

literature

Peter P. Hinks: To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance . Pennsylvania State University Press 1997.
David Walker: David Walker's Appeal: To the Colored Citizens of the World . Edited by Peter P. Hinks, Pennsylvania State University Press 2000.
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, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. Boston: David Walker, 1830.

Web links

Individual evidence

^ View Freedom's Journal
↑ See Nell Irvin Painter: The History of White People . WW Norton & Company 2010, p. 121.

personal data
SURNAME	Walker, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	black abolitionist
DATE OF BIRTH	September 28, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wilmington , North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH	June 28, 1830
Place of death	Boston , Massachusetts

[1] View Freedom's Journal

[2] See Nell Irvin Painter: The History of White People . WW Norton & Company 2010, p. 121.