To fully understand the ideals of 19th century socio-political activist David Walker, one must examine not the predicament into which he was born, but the environment in which he matured. Walker commenced his disseminations at a time when hopes for black empowerment and positive change in race relations were actually rising among many blacks in the North in the late 1820s. Free black communities with increasingly confident leaders were coalescing throughout the North. A religious enthusiasm that stressed the ability of individuals to remake themselves under God and banish sin from their lives was sweeping the North. And the first signs of some willingness on the part of whites to consider other ways for the races to live together was becoming apparent as a handful of thoughtful whites began to reject the popular colonization movement to return American blacks to Africa. Walker believed that African Americans not only could but must change themselves: their traditions, prospects, and power were all available to them. Through their change, America would have to change as well.

The years 1800-1831 constituted the period of the most diligent and carefully planned slave conspiring and rebelling in American history. Gabriel's conspiracy in 1800, the Easter Plot of 1801-2, the uprisings in Louisiana in 1811-12, the Vesey conspiracy of 1822, Walker's disseminations in 1829-30, and Nat Turner's famous insurrection in Southampton in 1831 are only the more celebrated incidents in an era of unprecedented slave restlessness and coordination.

But despite the rise of collective social consciousness, the obstacles confronting any attempt at conspiracy and rebellion were tremendous: a vigilant and resident white population that was demographically dominant throughout most of the South and well- organized in local militias and patrols; a terrain that did not offer any place for large groups of rebels to safely retire and protect themselves against white attacks; and a legal and extralegal system that sought swift and brutal retribution for conspirators. Yet, even with these odds, some slaves in the South opted to resist and, in so doing, created a tradition of resistance.

Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, and his efforts to circulate it among the slave population, was one of the most daring and resourceful plans for slave empowerment and resistance ever carried out in America. Shocked white Southern authorities reacted swiftly against its arrival in their communities by imposing new and sterner prohibitions against slave literacy, against distribution of antislavery literature, and against contact between blacks living in port towns and black sailors from Northern vessels passing through. But Walker did not merely seek exposure and education throught the distribution of pamphlets. His earnest vision of a unified and empowered nation of African Americans manifested itself in many different endeavors, each unique in scope and approach.

David Walker was in the forefront of an impassioned movement for racial union. Elemental in forming the Massachussetts General Colored Association (MGCA) in 1828, Walker also articulated its organizational foundations: 

The primary object of this institution, is, to unite the colored population, so far, through the United States of America, as may be practicable and expedient; forming societies, opening, extending, and keeping up correspon- dences, and not witholding anything which may have the least tendency to meliorate *our* miserable condition. 

Though contacting and networking for the purpose of unification proved to be a difficult task, the biggest problem Walker faced was the one of the individual psyche: how to transform the consciousness of individual blacks mired in the paradox of powerlessness amid power and personalities unified around an awareness of their own strength, integrity, and freedom. Walker's work was far from a simple harangue against slavery and whites intended to fire blacks to overwhelming acts of destruction against that institution and the racism justifying it. Truly directed, persevering, and effective rebellion could not occur until the individual participants had begun to possess for themselves the self-knowledge, self-definition, and awareness of entitlement from which the lords of slavery had labored to keep them.

Walker ascertained that the planters demoralized and confused the slaves by constantly assailing them with their own self-serving definitions of who African Americans were. For Walker, the first act of resistance occurred when the black individual began to doubt these prescriptions. Only then could the individual begin to shake free of the grip of the paradox, and only then could the individual begin to move toward the responsible self-knowledge and self- ownership that Walker and numerous other contemporary reformers - white and black - believed would be the foundation of a regenerated America where whites and blacks would live in a productive and res- pectful equality. The Appeal was to be the device to spark this transformation. It was a huge and daunting task Walker assigned himself and his handful of colleagues, and one that they would only begin, let alone fulfill. But he was certain that without this internal regeneration America would have nothing on which to rebuild itself, that acts of resistance would become more vagrant flailing, venting only rage without direction, under- standing, or any success.

Other Outlets for the Spirit of Abolition

Not too long after Walker published his Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison published the first issue of the assertive anti- slavery newspaper The Liberator and Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in southern Virginia. Many saw connections between these events.

Garrison was born in Newburyport, MA in 1805, where he grew up with hardships and struggles. He at one time had a job at a local newspaper which allowed him to acquire skills that he later employed when he published his own paper. At the age of 25, Garrison joined the Abolition movement. On January 1st, 1831, he published the first issue of his own anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. Walker may have possibly inspired Garrison, even though their ideas differed from each another. However, in some aspects they were similar. Both men were aggressive in their writing to express that slavery was inhumane and wrong. In the first issue of Garrison's paper, he expresses a level of emotion almost parallel to Walker: 

On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like himself. I am in earnest-I will not equivocate-I will not excuse-I will not retreat a single inch-AND I WILL BE HEARD. 

The emotional and assertive tone of Garrison's newspaper The Liberator, had a tremendous impact on many people and societies. Garrison inspired Frederick Douglass to become more involved with the abolitionist movement and was a mentor for Douglass during part of his life.

The appeal to freedom did not stop with David Walker. This fever spread throughout the African-American community by way of the literary genius of many others, such as Frederick Douglass. Through mere exposure to abolitionist literature and an unwavering desire, Frederick Douglass rose to become one of the most prominent black men in history. Hopefully this journey into the literary creations of Douglass will compliment what has already been said about Walker. By outlining various authors you, our visitor, can experience different styles which emphasizes the importance of various means to a common end.

 

This eloquently written text sweeps you off of your feet and embarks you on a journey into the life and times of an ex-slave. With intense passion and emotion, Douglass allows you to step into his shoes and experience slavery at its worst.

Douglass's main themes for this text are abolitionism and Christ- ianity. The first theme is developed through his appeal to humanity to end slavery. In his depiction of the beating of his aunt, you feel captured by his intense language, almost as though you are there witnessing the event. See for yourself: 

It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it (Douglass 258). 

After the immense success Douglass had with this text, he went on to revise it several times. Each time the tone and focus changed with age. Douglass's second appeal was entitled My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). This version intensified the tone of the first. The best example can be found in the lengthening of the section that focused on the beating of his aunt. What had been a short paragraph was elongated into several pages. The final version, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881) encompassed the full spectrum of his life. It was less of an appeal and more of a narrative. The intensity had diminished somewhat but the fire continued to burn.

Upon the final revision of Douglass's Life and Times (1892) he professed the deep impact his abolitionist work had on his life despite the many setbacks. I feel as though the following passage should be swallowed and thoroughly digested by all of our visitors. 

Contemplating my life as a whole, I have to say that, although it has a times been dark and stormy, and I have met with hardships from which other men have been exempted, yet my life has in many respects been remarkably full of sunshine and joy ( Voss xxii). 

Classic Slave Narratives, The. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin, 1987.

Hinks, Peter P. To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.

Korngold, Ralph. "Two Friends of Man: The Story of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips and their Relationship with Abraham Lincoln." Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1950.

Voss, Frederick S. Majestic in Its Wrath. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

Walker, David. Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.