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Gloria Boone –
Protest & Reform
David
Walker (1785?-1830)
I.
Biography
- David Walker, a
black abolitionist, advocated a violent revolt against slavery in
Walker’s Appeal (1829-1830).
- Born in 1785?
As a free black in North Carolina to a free Black women and a slave
father ( Powell,
1996
).
- Influenced by
the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Slave revolts, and the
rhetoric of liberty and revolution.
- Moved to
Boston. Here are some key elements of his biography from the Powell.
- opened a
used clothing shop
- lived on
Beacon Hill
- Wrote for
Freedom’s Journal- Early black newspaper from NYC
- In 1828,
help create the Massachusetts General Colored Association
- Died in
1830. Poisoned? Several Southern states offered an award
for
him dead or alive.
- His son
became a lawyer and was elected to the MA House.
II. Quotes from
Walker’s Appeal 1829- 1830.
A.
the Blacks or Coloured People, are treated
more cruel by the white Christians of
America, than devils themselves ever treated a set of men,
women and children on this earth.
B. Your full glory and happiness,
...shall never be fully consummated, but with the entire emancipation
of your enslaved brethren all over...
III. Rhetorical
Strategy Walker
A.
Appeals based on historical evidence.
B.
Points to the ideals of Christianity, Declaration of
Independence, American Revolution.
C.
Walker’s exigence is the horrors of
slavery.
D.
Hypocrisy and jeremiad used.
E.
Several Rhetorical audiences.
F.
Overcomes media constraints by sewing documents into clothes.
G.
Uses the rhetoric of confrontation: I am already dead.
IV. Reactions and
Effectiveness
A.
Southern reaction
“Walker's
Appeal was the most militant
antislavery document ever published in the United States up to that
time, and response to the pamphlet was immediate. In general,
Southerners were enraged; a reward was offered for
Walker—$1,000
dead or $10,000 alive. The Vigilance Committee of South Carolina offered
a $1,500 reward for the arrest of anyone distributing
Walker's
Appeal. Georgia and South
Carolina passed laws against its publication (Encyclopedia
of African American Society, 2005, p.865).
B.
Abolitionist reaction.
“Walker's
Appeal came under attack even
among Northerners and abolitionists. Quaker philanthropist Benjamin
Lundy claimed it would injure the abolitionist cause, and social
reformer Samuel May thought it would incite unwanted Southern fury
against the abolitionist cause. However, William Lloyd Garrison, a
leading white abolitionist, supported
Walker's Appeal and considered it a central document
in the struggle against slavery (Encyclopedia
of African American Society, 2005, p.866).”
C.
Walker found dead. Poison?
D. His
son, Edward Garrison Walker, a lawyer,
was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1866 (Encyclopedia
of African American
Society,2005, pp.864-865).”
IV. Effectiveness
A. Overall
“ Benjamin
Lundy, the pioneer abolitionist, condemned it as incendiary. The
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) admired the
Appeal's "impassioned and determined spirit," and its "bravery
and intelligence," but thought it "a most injudicious publication,
yet warranted by the creed of an independent people." The black
leader Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882) in 1848 proclaimed it
"among the first, and … the boldest and most direct appeals in
behalf of freedom, which was made in the early part of the
Antislavery Reformation." …. the Garrison children probably came
closest to the truth about Walker:
"his noble intensity, pride, disgust, fierceness, his eloquence, and
his general intellectual ability have not been commemorated as they
deserve ‘”( GOODMAN, 2006, p. 2257)”
- Influence
was lasting.
Influenced Garrison, Garnet, Nat
Turner, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and many other Black Nationalist.
References
Goodman , P. (2006). "Walker, David." Encyclopedia
of African-American Culture and History. Ed. Colin
Palmer. Vol. 5. 2nd
ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2255-2257. Retrieved 06
February 2006 from
http://0-find.galegroup.com.library.law.suffolk.edu:80/gvrl/infomark.do?&contentSet=EBKS&type=retrieve&tabID=T001&prodId=GVRL&docId=CX3444701269&source=gale&userGroupName=mlin_b_suffuniv&version=1.0.
Powell, W. S. (ed) (1996).
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. University of North Carolina
Press. Retrieved on 26 August 2007 from
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/bio.html
Stuckey, S. (1988).
Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black
America.Cary,
NC, USA: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 98. Retrieved on 05
February 2006 from
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/suffolk/Doc?id=10086786&ppg=111
Walker,
D. (1830). 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 of the United States of
America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829
REVISED AND PUBLISHED BY DAVID WALKER. (Online :North
Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Retrieved 07 February 2006 from
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html
"Walker, David (1796–1830)."
(2005). Encyclopedia of African American Society. Ed. Gerald
Jaynes. Vol. 2. Thousand
Oaks: Sage Reference, 864-865. Retrieved on 06 February 2006
<http://0-find.galegroup.com.library.law.suffolk.edu:80/gvrl/infomark.do?&contentSet=EBKS&type=retrieve&tabID=T001&prodId=GVRL&docId=CX3452200664&source=gale&userGroupName=mlin_b_suffuniv&version=1.0>.
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