David Walker Found Dead
On this day in 1830, David Walker, a prominent and outspoken black man, was found dead in his Boston home. The year before he had written David Walker's Appeal To the Coloured Citizens of the World, among the most powerful anti-slavery works ever written. Walker denounced the American institution of slavery as the most oppressive in world history and called on people of African descent to resist slavery and racism by any means. The book terrified southern slave owners, who immediately labeled it seditious. A price was placed on Walker's head: $10,000 if he were brought in alive, $1,000 if dead. Walker's writing would influence virtually every black leader who followed, including W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.
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