David Walker: Early Militancy from a "Restless Disturber of the Peace"
"The most militant voice among the early African American protest writers belonged to David Walker, whose call to violent resistance against slavery so alarmed authorities in the South that they were reputed to have put a price on his head" (Gates, et al. 159). As many African American activists would later intone, the key to overcoming oppression was solidarity and autonomy: one had to stand together with his fellows, secure in the knowledge of his own rights and potential and assert against a common enemy. Only then would freedom be attained. David Walker (1796-1830) would be among the first to risk his life to bring the message of freedom to African Americans and to challenge, head-on, a white power structure determined to prevent his success. Walker was born in Cape Fear, NC, to a free mother and an enslaved father who passed away before David was born. The law of the land dictated "partus sequitur ventrem" (that which is brought forth follows the wom...