Analysis Of David Walker's Appeal

“Are We Men?”

In David Walker’s Appeal, David Walker is completely fed up with the treatment of Black men and women in America at the hands of White people. He is tired of the constant dehumanization, brutality, and utter lack of acknowledgment of all of the contributions Black people made to the building of this country. Walker was extremely skillful in his delivery of his Appeal. He used concrete history and the fact that he had “travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist” (Walker) to build his credibility. He used the very things that White Americans held so dear to their hearts to point out the sheer hypocrisy in their actions and way of thinking, mainly the Bible and their political documents.

The fact that he used the Bible to condemn their actions is important for a few reasons: 1.) these people claimed to be Christian men and women, 2.) the Bible was the premier book of history in those times, and 3.) while the slaveholders and the oppressive race might not have feared the consequences of their actions here on Earth, they surely would have feared the consequences for their actions in the afterlife. Asking “ Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? -- What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself?” (Walker) is asking a loaded question. He’s saying to these men “surely you’re not placing yourself about Jesus Christ, are you?” These people may have been slaveholders, but they never would have considered themselves to be