Reading David Walker’s Appeal: The Pen as the Sword (episode 240)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 40 reading David walker’s appeal the pen as the sword.
Hi, I’m jake. This week. I’m trying something a little bit different.
This fall in winter. The Old North Church historic site has been hosting a series of conversations about radical black abolitionist David walker and his book and appeal to the colored citizens of the world.

[0:36] As part of their digital speaker series, education director Catherine Matthews moderated a conversation between artist, educator and activist.
L’Merchie Frazier and playwright. Peter Snoad on december 15th.

[0:50] This edition of the series focused on the text of the appeal is a piece of rhetoric that pointed out the brutality and hypocrisy of slavery and urged the enslaved to rebel by any means necessary.

[1:01] A big thanks to our friends at old north for allowing us to share this panel with you.
But before we do, it’s time to pause and thank our Patreon sponsors for making hub history possible.
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[2:14] David Walker was born free in Wilmington North Carolina in either 1785 or 1796 to an enslaved father and a free mother.

[2:24] As a young man, he moved to Charleston South Carolina and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he may have helped to inspire Denmark Vesey 1822 slave insurrection.

[2:35] Following the violent suppression of this uprising, Walker left South Carolina, eventually ending up in Boston by 1825.
Here he opened a used clothing shop, got married and plunged into the nascent abolition movement that was growing among boston’s black population.
He worked as a writer for Freedom’s Journal before publishing his appeal. In 1829, walker sent copies of his pamphlet south in the hands of white sailors or sewn into the linings of the coats that he sold to free african american sailors.

[3:08] As these pamphlets were shared or read aloud in the Carolinas, they electrified the black population and terrified whites.

[3:17] Frederick Douglass would later say that the book startled the land like a trump of coming judgment.
In fact, it may have inspired Nat Turner’s 1831 slave insurrection in Walker’s native Wilmington’s.

[3:30] Before long Georgia imposed the death penalty for any black person who brought a copy of the appeal into the state,
the governor of Virginia, the mayor of savannah and other southern officials wrote to boston, Mayor Harrison Gray Otis demanding walker’s arrest,
Georgia went a step further offering a bounty of $10,000 for anyone who could bring walker into the state alive and $1,000 if he was dead.
Then 11 months after the appeal was published, David walker’s dead body was found on his Beacon Hill doorstep, inspiring us that southern assassins had come to claim his bounty, inspiring us that southern assassins had come to claim his bounty.
If you’d like to hear a more detailed account of walker’s life, check out the show notes this week at hub history dot com slash 240.
For a link to our earlier episode 1 90 About walker, I’ll also have a link to four excerpts from the book that will be discussed in this week’s episode.
So you can read those and follow along with that, I’ll turn the reins over to Catherine Matthews from Old North.

Walker Event:
[4:37] Good evening everybody. My name is Katherine Matthews and I’m the director of education at the Old North Church and historic site.

[4:45] Thank you all for being with us tonight. As we continue our look at the life and legacy of David Walker, a 19th century black abolitionist.
Tonight. We will be taking a closer look at David Walker’s 1829 pamphlet and appeal to the coloured citizens of the world.
The appeal was widely read, widely shared and widely impactful.
We are fortunate indeed to have Liberty fraser and Peter snowed with us tonight as we embark on this exploration.
Liberty is an artist activist and an educator and is also the director of Education and interpretation at the Museum of African American History in boston and Nantucket.
Peter is an award winning playwright, history buff and a former journalist who has written a play about walker.
He is also a member of the Beacon Hill Scholars, which is a nonprofit group dedicated to raising public awareness of the historic black community on Beacon Hill, a community which of course included David walker.

[5:56] So tonight’s program is a bit of an experiment and we are excited to get started and here’s how it’s going to work.
Liberty will start by giving us a little context for the appeal. In terms of walker’s life and the socio cultural and political world in which he lived.
Peter will then offer us some insight into the way the appeal is written.
Then we have five excerpts lined up, one from the preamble and one from each of the four articles or sections.
We will hear them read aloud and then the murky and Peter will discuss them. So now let’s get started.
The mirchi floor is yours.

[6:35] Thank you, Catherine. It is a pleasure indeed to be here.
And invited in to the house of Old North and to discuss with Peter snowed the life of a of an extraordinary visionary profit and abolitionist david walker.
Uh, David walker was born free into a world of slavery,
And he was born in 1796 in an area of Wilmington’s north Carolina called Lower Cape Fear.
And this the place that he was born into has an extraordinary uh sense of what is happening in America with regard to slavery, because,
There are 3-1,
enslaved people,
to every white that is there who are black.

[7:37] And then there are the mixtures of free and enslaved people in that population.
So when we look at David walker who was born into this environment of slavery as a free man, his father Anthony was enslaved, but his mother was free, so therefore he is born free.
That is the definition of how he is identifying.
He is educated. He is uh, in an area where um in north Carolina that is peopled by ah,
a very interesting group of people who are organizing themselves,
who are looking at what is this thing called slavery, who are in the measure of slave revolt if you will.
And when we look at By 1796, we have the winds of revolution that have been happening not only the American revolution, but the Haitian Revolution.
And the idea that impinging on the freedom of uh those who are enslaved is this uh, this nature that makes them, I know that they are entitled to freedom,
based on the moral teachings.
Uh they are organizing themselves in spaces where.

[9:06] They have been denied gathering and assembling except for religious reasons.
And so the church immediately becomes this pay place where they can talk and they can convene and they can um, discuss,
strategies where they can discuss their lives as they exist And what they will do about it.
So in this area of, of North Carolina, you have in South Carolina along the Southeast Coast, you have had already rebellions.
You have one in 1721, another one in 1745, 1767.

[9:53] And one great one in 18 hundreds that has produced people who understand they’re right to be free and I really to do something about it.
So in reaction to that, you have, um, have had the Revolutionary War which um, enables um,
john Quincy Adams to think about whether we want black patriots in that american civil war,
and it is a general in Virginia who admonishes him to understand that it is black people,
Who are and, and this is a quote on September 17, 1775, John Adams Fred it over the risk of enlisting the support of Georgia and south Carolina in the revolution,
because there are huge problematic black population and this black population was uh composed of people who wanted to be free.

[10:56] By any means necessary if you think about it.
And that he said that the negroes have a wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves.
It will run several hundreds of miles in a week or a fortnight despite the efforts of whites to delimit the revolutionary favor to themselves alone.
Many blacks shared fully, if not as publicly in ascending to the eras persuasive anti colonial and democratic ideology.
So from that we, we can get that there’s this air of freedom in the world.
It is not just here in America, it’s in Haiti and and in that speak, this is David walker’s milieu.
This is his, the misogyny of him as a man as he grows up in this, this arena.
And as we look at the movement that is producing free people and enslaved people in the same place, we have an economy that is affected by that.

[12:06] Whites are uh in general, very bereft at there being free labor available because they cannot be employed.
And free blacks have even a harder time being employed.
And so with this combination and mixture of things David moves from, and that’s that’s some of the complexity. I’m not going to say that I can offer all of it in this point, because that’s probably another two lectures.
But when we talk about David, uh moving from from where he was in Wilmington north Carolina,
he goes to south Carolina, where charleston is a very, another vibrant place of blacks and their organizations and their, uh, their rebellion.
And we know about the very important rebellion of 1822 with Denmark Vesey, and it is said that Walker was around that area and in conversations uh, with him.
But what I wanted to say about walker’s world at that time is that it is marked by notable organizational structure,
because blacks in charleston are organized into groups that fit their needs like.

[13:26] The Brown friendship or Fellowship society which was full of refugees from Haiti from, from santa Domingo.
And and and they formed for their purposes as lighter complexion mulattos to be able, and that’s what they would call then.
That’s not what we would say now, that’s not proper. But um, at that time that’s what they were referred to to meet their needs. And then there was an organization of free and enslaved black society, of the dark men of color.

[13:59] And another one that was an educational um, society for the miners moralists society.
So when we look at this idea of black people being in imbued with organizational structure,
David is growing into this idea of being able to be present to be uh forging his way through this understanding of network an organization.
And so when he arrives in boston, Um, we we have to understand that he’s worked with the people who are in that insurrection in Denmark Vesey 1822, um 1822 moments.
And they have already talked about the two of them.
Um, Denmark Vesey and David walker about informants and people who was what we call today.
Snitch on what the conspiracy was.
And so they were working toward this idea of blacks being unified enough to to shield the conspiracies to end their enslavement.
And um as he arrives in boston is in a city where.

[15:15] Prince Hall In the 1770s man emitted by 1775 is uh in forming a group of men who are to be leadership through the Masonic Order.
And by 18 by 1787, they have received their charter from London and are operating and what we find about this landscape in Boston,
that this laid landscape of boston to what would be uh the atlantic world that the masons then are in, in uh involving Masonic,
um Masonic order,
with evangelism and Christianity,
that these are two operating principles that are there and that the components of evangelism, benevolence, charity, Universal Love and Grace, are what Prince Hall and his men are advancing,
and the movement of expatriation.

[16:14] Going back to africa or immigrating to Haiti.
That is a part of what the they’re, they’re pronouncing and they’re committed to ending slavery and freedom unlike other uh Masonic lodges at the time and they declare themselves,
absolutely dedicated to being free and independent.
It is uh john t Hilton who was here in boston who says we will not be tributary.
We are devoted to this cause of ending slavery. We are devoted to what has begun as this movement of benevolence to now understanding that are that we ourselves and by our rights,
are to work in unison as the people of color.

[17:04] And to free and independent to be free and independent of other lodges.
And so This is what Walker comes into an 1825, we know that he’s only here about What, 5 to 6 years we only graced with his presence for that time.
And so as we think of the men that he’s meeting with, who have now come to the point where they are changing their direction, That they’re here and they’re gonna be here.
They’re devoted to what’s happening here and not expect expatriation to Sierra Leone and Liberia by 1829. That’s that’s where they are.
Um, but just before that, as um, the first black anti slavery society in boston that we know know about, that’s operating on Beacon Hill.

[18:02] Where Prince Hall has directed black men to purchase property.
Um, and where they have built an african meeting house and a free black community of agency organizing itself, networking itself.

[18:19] That Freedom’s Journal, which is the first black newspaper, um, that’s actually begun in new york 18 27,
um, is operating and the uh, massachusetts General colored Society, which is the first black anti slavery society that we know of in boston, there may have been others, but,
David walker as he’s here in boston, he comes, becomes a member of that society.

[18:46] He becomes not only an advocate of abolition, but he is a writer and he writes for Freedom’s Journal.
He is an agent of that paper. And in that paper, what he does is admonish people to be united in this cause.
And um, one of the things that he says in a speech to the massachusetts General Color Association in uh december of 18 29.
He says the primary object of this institution is to unite the colored population so far through the United States of America, as may be practical and expedient,
forming societies, opening, extending and keeping up correspondence and not withholding anything.
He is fervent in his admonishing of the work of being black, of being free.
And this group of abolitionist is looking at facing this crisis of being relax.
This is a crisis to them and they used Christianity that was embraced by the nation’s that was, that is alive in the Southern States.

[20:02] As a marriage of moral um, adherence,
but as an instrument that is impressed through the media.
And publication. And so they’re in we arrived and this is a very, you know, kind of cut short version of this. But and it’s so hard to talk about him because he had so many dynamics to his life.
But as we think about the use of his words and publication, he is writing the appeal.

[20:36] He’s written the appeal and he’s an owner of a using used clothing store on brattle street in boston.

[20:44] He’s got the force of the massachusetts General Color Association.
He’s got the force of the Masonic order that he belongs to.
He’s got the force of a free black community with him.
And they are all strategizing and networking to get this appeal distributed in the south.
And so he is going to rely on that which he left in south and north Carolina and and the sea coast of the runaways.

[21:14] The maroons who form their own groups that resist slavery.
And this kind of swamp culture that is moving and through the tributaries of the rivers along that area to distribute this panther.
And another way of this distribution becomes to line the soldiers and the sailors who come into his shop to buy coats and line their their vests with the pamphlet.
So this strategy of distribution of this very incendiary document.

[21:49] Becomes the focus in Georgia and south Carolina of laws that are adopted to even hold sailors,
back at the airport not allow them,
to integrate into the populations that may receive this literature because people, regardless of what we think about the mythology of what was existing in slavery. There are people who can read.
There are people who can meet, and this document becomes a very ardent force in making the thinking about not being mediocre,
being excellent and you’re striving. That’s one of these principles.
The other is to encourage people before profits and and to be human to the interests of what would be implied by,
taking the opportunity of self government, a self governance even that, which was exemplary of the Haitian revolution.
And so as this pamphlet is being distributed, the there is a reward put out on his life.

[23:01] $3,000 dead and $10,000 alive and in the south to make a principal example of him.
Um Meanwhile we know that he has spoken with a woman in boston,
who lived next door to him on Joy Street Maria Stewart, who is an evangelist and an exhort er also who is in the political arena and that brings up David walker’s support of women,
and voting and most people don’t talk about that aspect of family.
But she even quotes him in her later writings and is one of the first suffrage is by uh 1833, if you will in Boston but more importantly as he has built this world,
has he is integrating and moving in this world that is built around the idea of freedom, democracy and public republicanism.
And he is refuting thomas, jefferson’s notes on the state of Virginia that says blacks are beasts and have no creativity and even Phillis wheatley is not a poet.
All of these uh kind of treaties that reduce and oppressed black people.

[24:19] He is also um he marries into a boston brahmin family. His wife’s name is Eliza Butler.
And he has a son, Edwin walker, who to give you some idea of what his political influence was after the civil war.
His son is one of the first elected representatives to the Massachusetts legislature in in 1866.
So this kind of aspect of David.
Um I could talk about him all night and I want to give others the opportunity to say what they have to say about David walker.
This dynamism that he presents is a challenge not only to whites but to blacks to govern themselves.
In a world million in a world, not just the United States particularly, but as he talks about,
the landscape and the what we call now, the global majority,
3/4 of the planet being black and brown people, he is operating with others, others in abolition who are traveling to England greatly is acknowledged their mobility.
He is acknowledging that this is peculiar and particularly addressed to those who are in America, but it is a part of a global presence that he is encouraging.

[25:47] Thank you so much Liberty. That was fantastic.
Um Peter, would you like to talk a little bit about the writing itself?
Sure. I just actually want to add a couple of things to the context and then talk a little bit about some of the themes that come through in,
for me anyway, in in the appeal and I’d love to hear what other folks feel about that.
Um a couple of things to just for us to bear in mind That in 1829 when when the appeal was published, boston was an extremely hostile place for black folks.

[26:30] What else is new? Um but you know, and and Lamouchi alluded to this is that there was this scientific racism that was growing,
which held that black people were subhuman, they were not even,
um you know, human beings.
Um and Ashley walker and the appeal refers to,
uh to black folks being uh you know, referred to as um you know, of, of tribes of monkeys and orangutans.
Um and as the much alluded to the, you know, jefferson and others um,
sort of legitimized this, this form of anti black racism that um so,
it was the time when, you know, if folks from the black community on Beacon Hill went across boston common, they were at constant risk of being attacked and beaten up by white people.
So, um, so there was that and.

[27:34] Ah And walker was determined to challenge Jefferson and others who were legitimizing this kind of racism because he I saw that this would be,
totally institutionalized in american society unless it was it was it was seriously challenged.
Um I think the,
The other thing just to mention uh contextually is that abolitionists at this time, 1829 were very small in number and were widely despised by white folks.
Um and it was, you know, they they were regularly or risk being attacked in publix in public meetings and so forth.
Um and the abolition abolition movement that we think about really didn’t Get into gear in any meaningful way until the beginning of the 1830s.
So at this point, um, you know, you have this very hostile atmosphere and this.

[28:44] White man suddenly appears in print with this devastatingly uh argued critique of white hypocrisy, white christian hypocrisy around slavery,
and he takes on white leaders, religious leaders, political leaders.
And he calls them out, you know directly with righteous rage, with eloquence, with passion and with humor, with sarcasm.
Um and as dr Salim Washington said in the previous series, speaker series presentation, walker had the temerity to say that God was on his side.

[29:31] And I just want to say that I think in in in writing the appeal in distributing it, walker essentially put bull’s eye on his chest.
Um it was an act of self sacrifice.

[29:48] As dr Washington also said walker was going to risk it all because that was what he was called to do mm hmm.
And he must have known his life was going to be short. In fact, he refers to it in the appeal he writes, I write without the fear of man.
I am writing for my God and Fear, none but himself.
They may put me to death if they choose now.
You might hear an echo of that speech or that thought In the last speech that was made by Dr.
Martin Luther King jr in Memphis April 3, 1968 before he was assassinated.
He wrote famously and he said famously, I’m not worried about anything.
I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. And interestingly enough.

[30:48] When King was killed, he was in his early 30’s when walker died ostensibly of tuberculosis.
But of course there was a strong kind of opinion that he was assassinated by by sub agents of southern planters or somebody hostile. He was also in his early thirties.
So too early martyrs to the cause.
Um So uh going to the to the sort of the characteristics of the appeal, I was kind of reading it again uh you know, in preparation for for us for this, for this gathering.
And I I just remembered how when I first read it, um how powerful it was.
Um but I also found it both somewhat, I was blown away, but if I just saw somewhat confusing at times repetitive, occasionally he would make detours.
And I think once I understood the context in which he was writing and what he was trying to do it, it made a whole lot more sense.
Um but I think two things to say about it, uh of course let’s just say, but two things I’ll just highlight one is that this the appeal was written to be spoken.
Um uh you know, um what walker expected was that he would recruit or they would be recruited.

[32:12] Black leaders in communities in the south who were literate.
Um, yes, there were a lot of literate black folks clandestinely, but the vast majority did not have access to the chance to learn to read and write, in fact, it was illegal to do so. And you know, you could be whipped or worse if you were caught doing it.
So, um, he hoped that he would that that black leaders would take and upon themselves to um, to to recite this essentially this speech,
to gatherings of folks who wouldn’t otherwise have access to it.
Um, and you can hear the preacher, obviously the the evangelist in his writing, those those stirring cadences that um, the,
you know, that that that that that rhetorical um, uh, jerry man, thank you. Yes.
And so the other thing I want to say that struck me again, reading it, and this is throughout the the appeal is, is the tone.

[33:29] It’s a tone of authority and total conviction and certainty.
Um, he almost dares white people to contradict what he’s saying and what he’s implying um proved me wrong is what he was saying.
And I I think it’s quite extraordinary that he maintains that that that energy and that pace and that authority throughout throughout the document.

[34:01] So, uh, I think maybe we could go to the preamble is the first thing um, before we went over there.
Yeah, I would like to comment that, um,
when we talk about David walker and the bible and Christianity,
that we have to recognize that there is movement among black people to use this as an instrument for metaphor of the circumstances for which they were found in.
And when he talks about that as an anti slavery tool.

[34:40] Um, he he speaks in a in this one of these quotes your full glory and happiness as well as those of all other colored people under heaven shall never be fully Consummated.
But with the entire emancipation of your enslaved brethren all over the world, if I believe it is the will of the Lord, that our greatest happiness shall consist in working for the salvation of our whole body.
When this is accomplished, a burst of glory will shine upon you, which will indeed astonish you and the world, there is a great work for you to do as trifling as some of you may think of it.
But for walker, this is this idea that there was this that we have been removed from,
the construct of the land that gave us different languages, um, to negotiate thought,
and that it is as we look at the preamble and the other men of Color court, that there is this idea of being able to um.

[35:51] Become literate and use the bible to,
somewhat look at the synchronization of,
what thought in african patterns of thinking and african descended people were thinking and through their rituals and community,
would be able to not be so identified in the Western world as subversive.
So that is another context that we have to think about walker being in gullah land, gullah territory, that is about not just this pure christian thought as it is.
And I often ask the question what christ wannabe christian,
um the way that Christianity is being used as an instrument to to even justify slavery, but that this is an important point to um look at walker’s um,
Refute and resistance to what christians were espousing and hypocrisy as you were saying, peter that was persistent.

[37:01] So with that let’s dive into the appeal the excerpt from the preamble.
Peter, would you like to read this?
I will ask one question here. Can our condition be any worse. Can it be more mean and abject.
If there are any changes, will they not be for the better though? They may appear for the worst at first.
Can you get us any lower? Where can they get us?
They are afraid to treat us worse, but they know well the day they do it, they are gone, but against all accusations which may or can be preferred against me.
I appeal to heaven for my motive in writing.
Who knows that my object is if possible to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted degraded and slumbering brethren,
a spirit of inquiry and investigation, respecting our miseries and wretchedness in this Republican land of liberty. Mhm.

[38:01] The gauntlet is thrown. Um I have a question, this is um he starts this off with, I have one question then proceeds to ask multiple questions.
So what is the power of the question?
I love to hear your thoughts on this? Well, I think that the question is a tool two,
uh not directly address it, but to get you to think critically about what would be your answer.

[38:36] And um and it’s it’s also a device used by um effective speakers,
to engage to to then um have the audience own the question, what is the question? And how will you respond?
And um as he does, he’s like asking for Jeff of definitions for you to identify yourself in some part of this question or what do you think about it?
But more more than and then that in this quote for me is this assertion of the Republican land of liberty, that this is um in that milieu of the republican um.

[39:25] Ideology, this is a republic, this is a democracy, this is,
where um the land of egalitarian thought and equality and all of that injustice is supposed to be in these documents of the constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
And as you talked about him, Okay, you know, he said, those were the two most important documents in America.
And so as these are um looked at,
in the language of the uh where jefferson is in europe and the kind of,
flavor of language that is being used in these documents to speak to liberty or as um,
the winds and tides of,
freedom from colonialism and and freedom from the of America from England and freedom from um the, the, the ravages.

[40:24] Of oppression that in this land that is supposed to be so fair.
Um, that john t Hilton who is one of the Masonic,
people in, in, in boston talks about that, that this is a space that is boasted of liberty, Christianity and civilization.
And then over 20 100 thousands of our race are kept in perpetual slavery without one ray of hope of there ever being released from their state of bondage.
But by death, americans does not this picture of human depravity move you to implore the aid of your God to assist in moving this foul spot,
from that country’s name.
And David john t Hilton was the grand mason of the large here in boston and he and, and David would be in in um, in conversation.
And so it made me think about this, this republican land of liberty as its flavoring the planet.
As a source of human activity engaging that.
And yet this country is it is in the measure of um.

[41:40] Against that very principle in enslaving men and women and Children to its profit base.
And there is a comment from a southerner white planter that um David writes about later.
He says everything must be transacted through the medium of negroes.

[42:05] And when he says that he is saying that in this Republican Land of Liberty, I’m supposed to be as a possessor of whiteness.
I am supposed to be on top, but yet I have to still negotiate everything through people who are in that doctrine of white supremacy less than me.
So for me, this is what David is pointing to. I’m sure that there are other thoughts.
So that’s what I’m thinking.

[42:35] Peter did you have something that you’d like to? Um, actually in the original, you may recall,
Republican Land of Liberty uh, much referred to is actually in italics and there are three exclamation marks right after it.
This is a device that the walker uses very candidly, I think throughout the the document is he,
he uses italics and exclamation marks, particularly when he wants to call out hypocrisy among white people.
And you can see it throughout the documents. Really interesting.
The other thing I was going to say about it is uh, that.

[43:19] I think that the way he contrasts uh.

[43:25] Miseries and wretchedness in the Republican Land of Liberty, it’s a striking image contrasting those two phrases.

[43:36] Yeah, I’ll stop there may be somebody else wanna give their own thoughts about this?

[43:42] We do have one comment in the chat um despite saying that his condition in this country couldn’t be worse.
Walker rejects the colonization movement, saying that black people have more claim to America than whites because of the countries, because of the country’s wealth had been built on black blood and tears, which is an interesting observation.
I too, was struck by the it couldn’t be worse, I think also,
just to say to in this is the preamble, but he encapsulates just into two sentences what he’s writing about because he says,
um how was it?
Uh my what is that? My um my motive in writing is, if possible to awaken the breast of my Afflicted Degrade and slumbering brethren etcetera.
Um And I think he has two audiences for that. He has a black audience and he’s also telling white people this is what’s going to happen, this is what is going to happen.
Um and this will happen. But I think he just says in that in that two sentences,
he opens up the door for what’s coming next, how he’s going to build his argument um two to create.

[45:12] You know, the the articles of the appeal that will deal with these different topics?

[45:18] Someone says, I believe that in summary he actually answers the questions that he asks.
So yeah, that yeah, shall we move on to the first article Emily? Would you mind reading it from the chat while I wrestle with my very recalcitrant computer.

[45:38] So from Article one, I have been for years troubling the pages of historians to find out what our fathers have done for,
for the white christians of America to merit such confined punishment as they have inflicted on them and to continue to inflict on us their Children.
But I must aware that my researches have hitherto been to no effect.
I have therefore come to the immovable conclusion that they americans have and do continue to punish us for nothing else before enriching them in their country for I cannot conceive of anything else.
Nor will I ever believe otherwise until the Lord shall convince me.

[46:21] Okay, we have an moritz saying, I am imagining the fear and reactionary nature of many whites when they saw the disruptive nature of what walker is appealing to and for,
do we have a history of white folks in his day that he actually won over?

[46:38] And another comment is, I wonder if he uses the word combine to put whites in their place through demonstrating their ignorance of this word and the,
I guess the extent of his own education.

[46:58] It is an ironic use, I would say of the word because I mean.

[47:04] How could anyone merit such a punishment? How could they how could they be talking about it that way?

[47:13] I just think this is biting sarcasm. It’s brilliant passage. I mean, it’s like all right, follow the money.
What are you saying? Follow the money.
Um And uh and again I that last line he broke not surprisingly perhaps, but he invokes the Lord a lot throughout,
you know, in a way I and II maybe others may disagree with this, but it feels to me as though.

[47:46] Uh he is always the last card he plays is the Lord is here.
And if you’re not with me on this, the Lord, you you will answer to him.
I mean, that’s really throughout the whole document. Um because he is going after particularly um this is the consequence of slavery, but you know, when he gets to preach is later.
You know, he really lays it on the line. You’re with me or you’re really going to be in hell.
Um Yeah.
And one of the things that he says um is uh how we could be so submissive to a gang of men.

[48:36] Whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not.
I never could conceive. And so in that, you know, he’s looking at the these men who are in control and power.
Um um, and as far as I can see,
who value the the prophet,
over recognizing and acknowledging human beings who are in that possessive white logic to uh,
two reinforced that they are entitled and this entitlement that’s there, it’s really implied in this for me.
Um and the hypocrisy with which they present christian principles to uphold that and to gird their positions in in this in this space.
Um, so for me, uh, the christians of America, he is questioning, are you really christian christian?
Are you holding to those principles? And if and if so if if the bible is being used here.

[49:55] Um it would be used to prove that slavery and bondage was is against all of this rather than being for it.
And he does cite in the later part of his appeal the the credit to Ethiopia.
Um, I mean Ethiopia and Egypt as this place of civilization and the um, the precursor to Western civilization being civilized and what the carry over in,
um the doctrine of, of being moral and the codes of those places to be moral in setting up your civilization,
opposes this idea of what was vested in Christianity as coming from the Africans,
what is becoming a an idea and a perception of human life and civilization being that which is a precursor to America.

[50:59] And yet the people who look like those people are here,
being enslaved and serving those who put themselves on the pedestal of being the christians in America.
And um I just think that he does this play on words that that reinforces you reflecting like you see this mirror, That’s you okay.
And so can you, you know, look at yourself and identify what I’m saying with what’s going on in this, this place.
And for me it reckons with the 21st century and the conversations that we’ve been having over the last 22 years that um it’s ugly head has not been cut off.
It is still apparent and enraging. Yeah.

[51:56] Well, let us move on to Article two.

[52:02] I’ll read this one. Men of color, who are also of sense.
For you particularly, is my appeal designed. Our more ignorant brethren are not able to penetrate its value.
I call upon you therefore to cast your eyes upon the wretchedness of your brethren and do your utmost to enlighten them, Go to work and enlighten your brethren.
Let the Lord see you doing what you can to rescue them and yourselves from degradation.

[52:38] I’ll comment um I think that I see this particular um,
the piece as really directed at particularly men in boston and other places like this and and charleston and,
um Wilmington’s who are who have had the benefit of education and not just calling words, but that these are men of reason,
and then those who are having another type of literacy who may not be necessarily lettered but can reason through.
It’s a natural ability to be able to do that.
But that within that is this uh mission.

[53:24] To appeal to this cadre of courageous men and and enlighten african americans who he believed would be most capable of understanding the dimensions and the urgency of this problem,
that um that they were then to organize and deliver this.
There’s this sexy sacred world that he exists in in the secular world.
And there is this idea that in this secular education of um of the people to invest in um in them.
This idea that we must move together in boston, as I was saying before, that there had been this period of time where they were looking to going back to africa and immigrating elsewhere.
But here is the admonishment to people who are here, we’re in this place to educate and to be responsible,
in this this urgent need to deliver,
education that would free the masses of black people from being demoralized and uh and being delivered from ignorance of uh not being able to necessarily to put into words what.

[54:44] It would be appealing to the abolitionists and the other people who are looking at writing articles, that this is the charge of those who have the wherewithal to do that.
And that also this is a shining light, a counterweight to the perversity indictment of blacks as inferior.
That this has to be raised as a subject matter that is truly invested in by those who are most affected by it.
So self agency here becomes a predominant command. I think in my own, in my own understanding of it, Men of color, he’s calling them.
You know, it’s like one of those broadsides that we see, you know, that when they’re recruiting the 54th or they’re,
recruiting men of color, like pay attention, here you know you have this thing to do,
that is, uh, that is about you and for you.
And that the increase in numbers is the increased as he called, because, uh, the soldiers in the Holy Army,
and that this is, you know, God directed, this is God, given that this is your charge. So, um.

[56:07] A lot of this comes through in what the masons have as their charter under Prince Hall, but As it gets more critical as we approach the 1839 Amistad event.
And um, those other things that bring abolition to its head and its pinnacle, we have the words of david walker that inspire discharge and its responsibility.
Uh, and by the time we get to the 20th century and it and somebody like that, and Perot Kenly forgive me for those who might not know what I’m talking about. But L L cool J creates this thing for us. By us.
It is about you doing it for yourself, That you are, you united enough.
And and in in, in his speech in 1828, that was published in the freedoms general. He talks about this uniting nobody can do that for you, but you.
So that charge is embedded in this for me.

[57:11] If I just pick up quickly on on that.
And much of your you referred to the sort of commanding nature this and actually I had a kind of similar reaction when I was just going through the wording of this article and I found that he was.

[57:27] It was a series of emphatic entreaties.
So it’s cast your eyes upon the wretchedness.
Do your utmost to enlighten them, go to work. Let the Lord see what you were doing. It’s kind of like marching orders, you know?
Absolutely, absolutely. Agreement. Yeah.
So it’s a it’s a space where um the the the key of inspiration and organizational structure is that you have this, so let’s use it. Come on.
Yeah. So in very contemporary terms, Excuse me.
But those are the kind of um commands that we even get.
If I’m looking at like people who call themselves woke quote unquote woke up today.

[58:17] The Black Lives Matter Movement and others who are participating in the larger scenario of demanding rights using all of your resources that you have,
to make the product that you want to happen happen is a part of this this command to be awake.
This command to uh use whatever is at your disposal and and be alive with it.
Um uh whether it’s sacred or secular in your expression, it is important that it be done. So yeah.

[58:58] I think also there’s um an implied promise in this, the last sentence where he says, let the Lord see you doing what you can to rescue them.
And what came to mind for me was the Lord helps those who help themselves. So if you get out there and your your work is recognized, you have a powerful ally um who will who will stand behind you.

[59:24] One person asks, I’m confused about who it is that he wants to be enlightened.

[59:30] Well in that phrase, in the putting forth of that, if I can read it here um he says to do your utmost to enlighten them to go to work and enlighten your brethren.
He is talking about people who have not had the advantage of uh of being taught and educated in one stream.
That’s one way or being a part of a of a group that can activate its own presence to uh to rescue themselves from degradation.
So I think he is talking to the black world, he’s talking basically though particularly to those enslaved here In America for one.
But the crisis of black being black here is for free and enslaved people and among those, those who are most literate.
When we talk about boston as this place of literacy and development um there were, there were whites in the south who were not as educated as most of the black people here,
and when you look at that call that he is um saying needs to be reckoned with to cast your eyes upon the wretchedness of your brethren, those who have less than you.

[1:00:58] Are the ones that he is exhorting here to do something about this situation to to do that.
So he is talking directly to men of color that he addresses in the very first part of that sentence and inclusive of that Men of color,
we have to include women and Children and especially here in boston, you have societies that are and and and garrison juvenile choir, you have Children who are participating,
in this same kind of exercise and when they come to the African school or the A.
B. L smith school, they are met if they’re coming from like macon Georgia and they haven’t been allowed to have the the the the the privilege to have an education and and denied that by law.

[1:01:49] There are Children who are best scholars in those rooms who are uh taught to help their own in this plight of being educated, being literate, being able to pick out more than what David walker says, it’s a call of words,
but to be able to reason,
and that this was the charge of people and teachers like Susan paul,
who was from a family of educators and worked in the African school to raise the level of what Children thought of themselves being educated but going beyond that to become abolitionists.
So in terms of this, this is a whole um grasp,
of utilizing everyone and anyone who is of sable Hugh,
as Maria Stewart refers to us to have that charge who are educated and to share it and to take that on um yeah and we see the same kind of thing um,
levied in if you if I can use this example in revolutionary cuba where you know each one teach.
One is is the the edict.
And there’s uh in in the African meeting house as we come back to boston, there’s Tuesday night meetings where the whole community can come and learn and be involved.

[1:03:10] In other places like philadelphia in new york and um places where there were other meeting houses and gathering spaces.
This was an edict to then raise the level of thinking and education of those who were denied access.

[1:03:29] We have two more articles to look at quickly. So let me share the next one from Article three,
which is called Our Wretchedness and consequence of the preachers of the religion of jesus christ what the american preachers can think of us over this day before my God, I have never been able to define.
They have newspapers and monthly periodic ALS which they receive in continual succession.
But on the pages of which you will scarcely ever find a paragraph respecting slavery, which is 10,000 times more injurious to this country than all of the other evils put together,
and which will be the final overthrow of its government unless something is very speedily done,
for their cup is there is nearly full.
Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this. But I tell you americans that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your country are gone.
I warn you in the name of the Lord, whether you will hear or forbear to repent and reform or you are ruined.
Do you think that our blood is hidden from the Lord? Because you can hide it from the rest of the world by sending out missionaries and by your charitable deeds to the Greeks, irish, etcetera.

[1:04:48] It’s notable, I think in this um, in this particular article with this, except in this article that he repeats twice the warning,
that it’s going to be all over unless you come and face the facts about slavery and he starts off by saying,
and you and your country are gone.
Ah And then the next sentence, I warn you in the name of the Lord to repent and reform or you are ruined.
Um and that’s just in this particular section, there’s a couple of other places in the appeal where he foretells the demise of the republic in no uncertain terms.
And um, uh yeah, it’s kind of a running theme.

[1:05:42] And I also think that this is the the but I call him a prophet. He is seeing the civil war.
Mm hmm. You’re seeing this advance of um rebellion. He’s already been involved in a place where rebellions are happening over and over and over again.
And in a place where Virginia has decided to its its constitution to um to eventually in slavery.
So but yes, so gradually because they have had the force of the Haitian revolution and that these that the realization that if we are not giving rights, two people,
that they will rebel, they will end this in their own manner.
Just as we struck the chord to the that they as white colonists struck the chord to in their dependence from Britain,
even if it took military might to do so and it did.
And so in his prophetic look at the comparison of that in terms of freedom, freedom is freedom and freedom is a moving and not status.

[1:07:01] And as we look at through if we are able to reimagine as David is looking at the scenario scenario in this country,
he is seeing this this change happening through military might.
I do believe that he is really seeing that, that it is not just the word of God, but he talks about faith and action.
He talks about the action that you know, you may have the faith that this is going to come about.
But in terms and I’m doing this in my own words, in terms of acting and something has to be done and something will be done.
It’s like keeping something and of an explosive nature in the container pretty soon.
The, you know, the the reactions and the chemical processes are going to explode and America will be gone.
And we witnessed that in the upheaval.

[1:08:00] And the coming of the civil war and the lack of reckoning with what the abolitionists are trying to um um, bring about.
And then if we recognize that David is in this place where he’s seeing all manner of conversations about freedom,
but all manner of how freedom is being perceived as a commodity and as a thing and what people are bringing to that conversation from their own experience.
So there’s different entries into this conversation, just as garrison abolitionists are immediate ist, but their pacifist uh douglases,
uh, Garris Sony in abolition is up to a certain point and then he says, oh no, I have gone through slavery.
I see, you know, the horrors, I’ve had stripes on my back, I think that something else has to be done no matter what way it is, if it has to be military, it’s gonna come to that and walker having seen.

[1:09:12] The the people of the swamp area who have maroons and have armed insurrection. That somebody along somewhere is providing these this ammunition to these enslaved people so that they can be free.
He is seeing that, You know, if you you don’t straighten up and and and the people in his area at that time were three, at least 3-1 who were black.
Um that there will be no America.

[1:09:43] And on we shall go to article four which is entitled our wretchedness and consequence of the colonizing.

[1:09:53] Throw away your fears and prejudices then and enlighten us and treat us like men and we will like you more than we do now I hate you and tell us now know more about colonization.
For America is as much our country as it is yours.
But americans, I declare to you while you keep us and our Children in bondage and treat us like groups to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends.
You do not look for it. Do you treat us then like men? And we will be your friends?
And there is not a doubt in my mind but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion.
And we yet under God will become a united and happy people.
And the note is, you’re not astonished at my saying, we hate you.
Where if we are men, we cannot but hate you while you are treating us like dogs.

[1:10:49] Well, I guess that’s in line with you know, as you refuse. Shall. So for for 11 way of looking at it.
Um but in that jeffersonian document where he is mr Jefferson,
but have given the world the remarks respecting us,
when we are submissive to them and so much survived deceit prevail among ourselves when we so meanly submit to their murderous slashes this society to that.

[1:11:24] Christianity is about love.
It’s about um and and republican ideas about equality that in if in this i the idea of,
of freedom and democracy, Is that why.

[1:11:43] Are the the heads of um people not vested in that being spread to all people?
That not we know that this is not the first instance of slavery in the world.
Yes, but we know that it is uh different radically because it is dealing with the issue of race as a moniker.
Um why would one be enslaved?
And um as we we think about that, um and preachers being.

[1:12:18] In pulpits where they can discuss the unfairness and the inequity of this, instead being um urged to then continue their um they’re sought their their onslaught,
of people who are who are really,
the backbone of this country um yet treated in unspeakable ways.
He relates the story of a of a of a mother being whipped to death,
by her son because he’s ordered to do so and the horrible act of that. That is like.

[1:13:04] Treating a person as a beast, but one of their own having to almost take the role of a beast to do it.
Mhm. Where is that in any part of any civilized society? Where is that?

[1:13:26] So this idea of reconciling within one’s own self, that this could be my fate. Mhm.
By law that this is not just on a wish but that the country this country in America girded these behaviors by law,
not just religious law, but state and federal laws.
We can come to the case of dread scott In 1857 of being deemed not even a man.
So this continuous um and continuing line of um african,
being the beast and the Europeans being the human is the the speak of the courts that I don’t even have to acknowledge you as a man.
I don’t have to acknowledge your human mess.
And so with him writing this prior to that 1857 case leads us to understand how deeply invested he was,
in in the message about that.
If you continue to treat us like dogs, how can we love you? That Christianity is associated with love? Stop that.

[1:14:56] In other words, it’s a I think another command in him seeing it that way.
Um that gives you some structure to um review and reflect on what is your thought, especially directed.
This is especially directed to white people in this in this case.

[1:15:20] The merchant had a quick question for you and I because I’d love your thoughts on this and he, this is uh well, I think maybe one of three places in the appeal,
where David walker sort of says there is hope that we can reconcile that we can as he puts it finally here, um uh that we can yet under God become a united and happy people.
He says at the beginning there and there is no doubt in my mind that that’s possible.
I’m wondering what you think of that, because I have to say, when I read it again this time, I was like,
seriously, you really believe that, given what you’ve personally been through, what you see around you,
do you think it was his religious faith that allowed him to be able to cling to that hope that it was possible in the end to reconcile to end slavery and all of that?

[1:16:14] Well, I I do think that in the deep wells of being human,
there is this idea if you are human, that there is another human on the earth that you can identify with, that there’s this well,
with which like in metaphysics, um we think about as low as you can go.
So, can you go hot And so if that is where your threshold of being human, rest,
that hope is the protector hope must be anchored somewhere in the human that,
I can, I will examine myself and say what I’m doing is not right and it is not human. Mhm.

[1:17:03] In religious philosophy and theology, I’m sorry,
and the cosmology of, of other religions, you you you find that that space that you can occupy,
that says there is hope, There is light at the end of the tunnel.
I can see it coming even though this is the present uh state.
So it allows he’s allowing this opportunity to turn the archive to rather than being in the space of the paranoia,
of of not recognizing the sovereignty of people, the erasure of people, the degradation of people that it is,
and opportunity to get a hold of yourself and and and grasp that this is shameful.

[1:18:02] Are we going to repair or are we going to continue in that shape fullness.
So, I think it is his call in a way of saying, you know, that we can be better and that we can, we can unlock that.
But all of that must be checked that what has been happening is satanic, if you will,
it is uh, you know, um um indicative of, of what would be attributed to devils.
And so as we think about this, is that where we want to be more or less, it’s his, I think that’s just me, but that is his assertion that there is hope for humanity.
And I think we all operate with that.
And bryan Stevenson said as a lawyer who has worked in the Mississippi Delta and you know, being applying himself in a contemporaneous,
um, um manner to what white supremacy is brought and white possessive thought has brought in the, in the country even after slavery and the impact of the complexity of the nature of slavery.
Um, and people who are flying these confederate flags and he’s told numerous stories, but one of them that that um one of his quotes.

[1:19:27] Was that we, we have hope, that we must protect our hope and that we must um have it as something that taps us on the shoulder when we’re thirsty.
Um, this idea that uh ah no matter what the state is, we can’t give that up because if we give that up, we’re gone and then in the testament of hope by MLK.
Um um, you have that same embrace.
So it is a moral issue.
It is an issue of being human. It is in the testaments. It’s in it’s in the stories, it is in chemical kush.
It’s in those places where civilization has its hold on us and in our writings to be able to rise to a better level.
So that’s what I saw when I wear that.
Thank you for asking.

[1:20:28] As we tie things up. I’d like to reiterate what Liberty just pointed to. Which is, I think on the one hand, there is hope.
And on the other hand, there is the question is this who we want to be.
And I think if we can hold those two things at the same time in our heart, um it can be a very helpful way to not only read David walker but to think about She did.
So, I want to thank you peter and lou mirchi very much for your insight and the conversation.
I want to thank our audience.
So have a good night. Everybody.

Jake:
[1:21:06] To learn more about David walker and his appeal check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 240.
I’ll have a link to the four excerpts that were discussed in the talk as well as the full text of the appeal for you to read and enjoy.

[1:21:22] I’ll also link to our past episode 190, which you can listen to for more about Walker and the wide reach of the appeal.

[1:21:30] And of course I’ll include a link to the next installment in the old North Speaker series about David Walker, yours and mine belonging in the American experience, which is coming up on January 26.

[1:21:42] For those listeners who have missed hearing co host America Nikki’s voice on the show, she’ll be moderating the panel discussion for that next event.

[1:21:51] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast at hub history dot com.

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Music

Jake:
[1:22:37] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.