APPEAL TO THE COLORED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD BY DAVID WALKER This paper seeks to analyze, evaluate, and summarize the David Walker’s book ‘Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World’, which was written by a famous African-American anti-slavery activist and abolitionist David Walker.

Generally, the book David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World is an influential social and political document of the 19th century that calls for self-help and black unity in the fight against injustice and oppression. This work pays significant attention to inequalities and abuses of slaves and the obligation of people to act responsibly for the racial equity according to political, ethical, social, and religious tenets. The book was inspired by the success of slave uprising in Haiti led by Toussaint Louverture. From this encouraging example, Walker understood that it is possible to fight slavery and that there is a way out even in the most complicated situations. The Appeal is not only about the moral wickedness of whites and freedom for blacks. It is also a reflection of religious anthropology of human nature in general and his vision of personhood in particular.

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David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World contains four interrelated articles. Article 1 “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery” depicts the main characteristics of black people’s oppression under slavery and states that blacks should resist their white oppressors even by using force if necessary. Article 2 “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance” states that the ignorance and inactivity of black people is a key barrier to the consolidated fight against inequality and racial injustice. Article 3 “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ” describes concrete ways in which the white people exploit the slave system illegally and unethically. Article 4 “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Colonizing Plan” is a verbal attack on the American Colonization Society scheme of repatriation of free black people back to Africa. Walker states that the single motive behind this plan is the promotion of slavery on the American continent as all the free black people will be away.

It is important to mention that the Appeal is not a formal treatise but rather a manifesto and a rallying cry for change. However, when the Appeal first appeared, it was considered the most aggressive, anti-slavery document that had ever been published. Filled with sarcasm and vitriol, laments and indignation, its rhetoric suggests that it was not created for private-read but rather for a grand oral presentation to the audience.

Walker significantly challenges white Americans with his Appeal, stating that the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which is considered to be one of the key laws of the country, does not actually function. In other words, the document proclaims the rights that do not exist in reality; however, nobody cares about that. In particular, he states that the following excerpt from Declaration of Independence is not implemented on practice: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Walker is not satisfied with current situation in terms of the state’s racial and ethnic policy and he clearly points that in his “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” in the following way: “Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us-men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!”. Walker also forced Americans to think about the meaning of the following words addressed both to white and black people in the Declaration of Independence: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government”. Through this excerpt, Walker wanted to show Americans that they might face the truth relied by their own legal document. The whites subjected the blacks to “cruelties and murders,” while the second had “never given” them any provocation. These words characterize Walker as a truly radical person, but he could not act in any other way or with less extent of radicalism because otherwise his voice would not have been heard and therefore would have no meaning both for the white and black population of the US. In a similar way, many people regarded Walker’s writings as overtly racist as sometimes he characterized the whites as blood-thirsty, avaricious, unmerciful, jealous, and unjust individuals that only seek authority and power. However, this statement often corresponded to the truth, and Walker, being black, also felt this attitude “on ow
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