David Walker's Appeal: To the Coloured Citizens of the World

by Walker, David; Hinks, Peter P.

• ISBN13: 9780271019949
• ISBN10: 0271019948
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Summary

In 1829 David Walker, a free black born in Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote one of America's most provocative political documents of the nineteenth century, Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Decrying the savage and unchristian treatment blacks suffered in the United States, Walker challenged his "afflicted and slumbering brethren" to rise up and cast off their chains. Walker worked tirelessly to circulate his book via underground networks in the South, and he was so successful that Southern lawmakers responded with new laws cracking down on "incendiary" antislavery material. Although Walker died in 1830, the Appeal remained a rallying point for African Americans for many years to come, anticipating the radicalism of later black leaders, from Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this new edition of the Appeal, the first in over thirty years, Peter P. Hinks, the leading authority on David Walker, provides a masterly introduction and extensive annotations that incorporate the most up-to-date research on Walker, much of it first reported

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
Editor's Note: The Three Editions of the Appeal	xlv
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World	1	(82)
David Walker's
Preamble	3	(80)
Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery	9	(12)
Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance	21	(16)
Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ	37	(10)
Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Colonizing Plan	47	(36)
Appendix: Documents	83	(28)
Editor's Notes to Walker's Appeal	111	(22)
Index	133