Walker, David (1785-1830), was an African American abolitionist who wrote a famous antislavery pamphlet. This pamphlet, called An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829), urged enslaved African Americans to fight for their freedom. Its publication marked the beginning of the radical antislavery movement in the United States. The Appeal was the strongest attack on slavery made up to that time by a Black writer.
Walker was born a free man in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father had been enslaved, and his mother was a free woman. Walker educated himself. In 1827, he settled in Boston and opened a second-hand clothing business. He became a leader in Boston’s Colored Association, which opposed slavery. He wrote for and helped distribute Freedom’s Journal, the first Black newspaper in the United States. Walker died on Aug. 6, 1830, under mysterious circumstances, reportedly of poisoning. Many abolitionists believed he was murdered.
