David Walker's Influence On African American Abolitionists

David Walker David Walker was an American Abolitionist during the first part of the 19th century. He was an African American born with a father who was a slave and a mother who was free. Due to him being born in North Carolina, he got his mother’s free status. As a result of him being free, he was able to learn how to read and write unlike the African Americans who were slaves. Walker still witnessed the brutality of slavery even though he was free. This created his hate for slavery which would lead him to become an abolitionist. Walker decided to leave the South in the mid 1820s and moved to Boston where he opened a secondhand clothing store and got married which led him to become a leader of Boston’s free black society. He was also
a writer for Freedom’s Journal which was the first newspaper that was black owned and operated in the US. David Walker’s largest accomplishment is Walker's Appeal in Four Articles. In his article, Walker wanted the slaves in America to overcome their masters. The difference between Walker’s ideas and the ideas of most other abolitionists during this time was that Walker called for armed action to take place while most others advocated liberation by nonviolent means. Walker was also the first African American to publish something that was for an audience of other African Americans and not just whites. His appeal caused turmoil. It created more delusions about slave insurrections. As a result of Walker’s extremist ideas, his appeal was rejected by other abolitionists.

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist during the 19th century.
He was born in Newbury, Massachusetts where he was raised near poverty solely by his mother because his deserted the family. Garrison worked as an editor in 1827 for the National Philanthropist. When he was 25, Garrison joined the antislavery movement. The movement at this time was very divided and decentralized due to everyone having a different opinion. At first Garrison was for the gradual liberation and colonization of the slaves. As time passed, he became more demanding for immediate action. William Lloyd Garrison’s biggest accomplishment was The Liberator, a newspaper that he cofounded and was about anti-slavery. He did this after he released from jail because he was arrested for not paying a fine for a lawsuit against him. The Liberator started as a very small newspaper but soon grew to the point where it have Garrison nation recognition as a abolitionist. His aggressive journalism and recent events, like Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia, led to the South disliking him. At one point, Georgia offered a $5000 reward for his arrest. Another accomplishment of William Lloyd Garrison was his part in the founding of the New England Antislavery Society in 1932. In 1933 he also helped form the American Antislavery Society which contained abolitionists from ten different
states.
Sarah M. Grimké Sarah M.
Grimké was born in Charleston, South Carolina on November 26, 1792. She was an abolitionist and a feminist. Sarah’s parents were wealthy, conservative, and aristocratic. Contrary to their family, Sarah and her sister grew apart from their environment. From growing up in the South, where there was more slavery, Sarah and her sister Angelina, developed an anti-slavery attitude from seeing what was happening to slaves. They also disliked the inequalities that women had when compared to men. Sarah wanted to study law like her brother, but was unable to because she was a woman. She became associated with the Quakers when she was on a trip to Philadelphia. She saw their ideas were similar to her own so she joined and moved to Philadelphia. She also got her sister to join the Quakers Society of Friends. Sarah M. Grimké had a few big accomplishments. Sarah had a series of letters that were published in the New England Spectator that voiced her feminist beliefs. The letters were later put as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes. She also wrote Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States in 1836. Sarah and her sister were the first women to testify before a slate legislature on the topic of black people's rights. The two sisters are also credited with a book containing all of their essays and letters called On Slavery and
Abolitionism.