39 pages • 1 hour read
David Harry WalkerDavid Walker's Appeal
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Contradiction of Slavery and Democratic Christian Ideals
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses enslavement and racism.
One of the most important themes in Walker’s Appeal is how slavery contradicts the United States’s professed founding principles of justice and equality. Walker describes the United States as a Christian nation and repeatedly illustrates how the country’s treatment of African Americans undermines both Christian and democratic principles. Walker argues that, despite being an “enlightened” nation, white Americans behave like “devils” and make a “mockery” of their nation’s founding principles by holding enslaved African Americans in the worse “wretchedness” and degradation of any historically oppressed demographic.
From a religious standpoint, Africans were long considered to be descended from Noah’s cursed son, Ham, and that curse was used as justification for enslavement. However, Walker argues that there are no Biblical grounds to support this interpretation. The Bible makes “no distinction on account of men's colour” (68); on the contrary, it calls on believers to spread God’s word to “all nations.” Slavery stands in “open violation of the Bible” (61), and Walker calls out hypocritical “pretend preachers” who hold African Americans “in the most abject slavery and wretchedness” (62) even while sending out missionaries to convert “heathens” in far corners of the globe. Walker insists that it “pleased” God to make African Americans black, and skin color is no indication of defect or inferiority. Furthermore, he points out that white Europeans have historically been drivers of evil and oppression, not people of color, so this idea of punishment is completely baseless.
From a political point of view, Walker calls on white Americans to read the Declaration of Independence, which clearly states the belief that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (106). Like Christianity, this belief stands in direct contradiction with the treatment of African American enslaved people, who possess no rights or status in society. Ultimately, these violations of Christian and democratic principles hinge on the dehumanizing belief that Black people are not “of the human family” (23). To justify continued enslavement and oppression, white Americans perpetuated the belief that Black people were “brutes” and, therefore, undeserving of the so-called universal rights that the Bible and Declaration of Independence offered. Walker calls on white Americans to end their hypocrisy and treat African Americans like men, and he calls on his brethren to demand the rights they deserve.
The Responsibility of Oppressed Populations in Ending Injustice
Walker’s Appeal is a denunciation of slavery and a call to action. He points out how his Black “brethren” perpetuate their own oppression and calls on them to rise up and fight for their rights. Walker argues that God is just; he hears the cries of the oppressed and will end their suffering and exact retribution from their abusers. However, Walker also insists that oppressed people are responsible for working for their own liberation; they “must go to work and prepare the way of the Lord” (51).
To begin, Walker addresses how African Americans perpetuate their own oppression due to internalized racism and belief in white superiority. White people argue that people of color are naturally inferior and servile, and Walker argues that certain members of the Black community confirm these biases with their “groveling submissions and treachery” (48). He claims that white Americans will never end slavery and grant rights to Black people because they remain compliant and submissive and aspire to no “higher attainments than wielding the razor and cleaning boots and shoes” (50). Walker claims that such attitudes “contribute almost as much injury to our body as tyrants themselves, by doing so much for the promotion of ignorance amongst us” (55). Some African Americans are even “in league with tyrants” (39) and willingly participate in the continued enslavement of their brethren.
Undoing slavery, then, consists largely of undoing the white perception of people of color as “brutes.” Walker tells his readers, particularly “[m]en of colour, who are also of sense” (49), that “[t]here is a great work […] to do” (51). Black people must “prove to the Americans and the world, that [they] are men, and not brutes as [they] have been represented, and by millions treated” (51). In order to be treated like men, Walker argues, African Americans must shake off the “death-like apathy” and behave like men. Foremost in this movement is “the dissemination of education and religion” (51). This task falls to educated Black men, who Walker claims have a responsibility to “enlighten” their less-educated brethren. True emancipation cannot exist without lifting up the whole of the race, and any lingering “ignorance” will undermine the effort to dismantle concepts of Black inferiority. Walker reminds his Black readers that freedom is their “natural right,” and they must claim it.
Education and Ignorance in the Perpetuation of Slavery and Oppression
In his Appeal, Walker illustrates how education (for some) and enforced ignorance (for others) have been used to perpetuate the oppression of African Americans and how education can become a key tool in the fight for emancipation and equality. He argues that ignorance is one of the most effective tools of white supremacy, used to subdue African Americans and maintain a system of racial subjugation.
Drawing on examples of African ingenuity, like the construction of the Pyramids, the engineering of the Nile River, and the successful revolt of enslaved people in Haiti, Walker argues that “ignorance and treachery” are “not the natural elements of the blacks” (37), but rather a tool deliberately used by white oppressors to maintain their power and control. Walker claims his forebears were “plunged” into an “almost impenetrable abyss” of ignorance by white colonists (35). For centuries, they were denied access to education and told they were “an inferior and distinct race of beings” (35), and many came to believe it. Walker also illustrates how the denial of education is another element that sets American slavery apart from other forms. In Rome, for example, enslaved people were often so highly educated that they served as tutors to their enslavers’ children. However, Walker quotes Thomas Jefferson, who pointed out that people whom the Romans enslaved were white, which suggests that it was “not their condition then, but nature” that produced their intelligence (30). In other words, centuries of systemically denying Black people access to education allowed white Americans to validate claims of inherent inferiority and justify further oppression.
Education becomes a key tool in the fight for freedom and abolition because it counteracts the concept of inherent Black inferiority. The idea of educated African Americans “scares [their] cruel oppressors almost to death” because they know the cruelty they inflict would no longer be hidden or justifiable (54). Furthermore, an educated man would never tolerate such inhumane treatment and would be likely to violently rebel. The colonizing project that Walker discusses in Article 4 highlights these fears. White enslavers worried that the presence of educated and free Black people in the country would make those who continued to be enslaved prone to revolt. It would also undermine the concept of inherent inferiority, which could cause more white people to doubt the validity of slavery. Therefore, they hoped to send free Black people back to Africa so that their “more miserable brethren may be the better secured in ignorance and wretchedness” (83). Walker draws attention to these points to argue that education must be a route to freedom.
