David Walker

David Walker, a free (with a small f) black man, was one of the most significant African-American abolitionists of the nineteenth century. Born in a slave society before moving to Boston where, after the American Revolutionary War, slavery was abolished, Walker devoted his life to fighting slavery and antiblack racism. In this book, Sherrow O. Pinder brings to light Walker’s lived experience, activism, and the synchronizing of his Christian principles and reformist radicalism to demonstrate why and how slavery must be eliminated. Walker’s call for blacks to regain their natural rights culminated in his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, an enormously influential work that is now considered a founding text of black studies. Today, given the escalation of antiblack racism manifested in the upholding of institutionalized violence by the state and the continued marginality of African-Americans, we cannot afford to forget Walker’s push for racial egalitarianism: it is more urgent than ever.

Introduction Chapter 1: Envisioning David Walker’s Life in the South Chapter 2: David Walker Moves from the South to the North Chapter 3: David Walker’s Reproof of Blacks’ Unequal Treatment and How to Promote Racial Equality Chapter 4: David Walker’s Fearless Speech in the Appeal and Its Aftermath Conclusion: The Usefulness of David Walker’s Thought for an Analysis of Antiblack Racism Today