Our Appeal To God Is Our Ultimate Testimony

“If I were you, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him.” – Job 5:8. 

Born the son of a free Black woman in North Carolina around 1785, David Walker never took his status for granted. Convinced slavery was sinful, he joined Boston’s abolitionist movement. 

In 1829, he wrote a 76-page anti-slavery pamphlet for free and enslaved Black people. Titled “Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” his pamphlet critiqued colonization and slavery as a violation of Christian tenets. 

The appeal demanded the abolition of slavery.

Walker’s appeal shaped the anti-slavery movement and influenced its leaders. Frederick Douglass and William Loyd Garrison often cited Walker’s appeal in their own abolitionist work. 

Decades later, Walker’s appeal was still evident in some rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement. It is easily recognized as one of the most important historical documents that paved the way for Black liberation. 

Which cause really gets your blood pumping? If you could write an appeal supporting it, what would it say? 

Now is the time for us to appeal to causes rooted in Black liberation. When we give testimony, we know our words are being guided by Spirit. Think of your appeal as a testimony. 

What is Spirit telling you to say?