Born: September 1785, Wilmington, NC

Education: Methodist mission school

Died: August 3, 1830, Boston, MA

The child of an enslaved father and free mother, Walker had a short but significant life. A literate and fearless spokesman against racial slavery and oppression, he proved to be a forerunner, paving the way for influential black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet.

After traveling at risk as a freeman in the Slave South, he moved to Boston by the mid-1820s to earn a living and join the abolitionist movement. A member of the May Street Methodist Church and Massachusetts General Colored Association, he emerged as a leader. He also became local agent for the New York Freedom's Journal.

Walker's Appeal, written on behalf of “my much afflicted and suffering brethren,” was his singular contribution. He defied “the white Christians of America, who hold us in slavery” and finance “the colonizing plan,” warning them that “America is as much our country, as it is yours.” Vowing that “we must and shall be free,” he called for slaves and free blacks to take up arms and “obtain our freedom by fighting” (Walker's Appeal, 1830, pp. 5, 22, 79). Slave state authorities quickly outlawed his Appeal, jailed or executed its distributors, and silenced black preachers. Speaking to faith and force, Walker powerfully articulated blacks’ freedom struggle.