David Walker

Throughout history a topic of debate has been the value of black people in the world. The founding fathers of America were not strangers to this concept of discussion. Some of the brightest minds this country has seen have made claims about the lack of value black people have in this country. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most vocal people about this topic before his presidency and beyond. While his arguments are overall sound for the time period, some of his points are better than others. David Walker, a black man, replies to Jefferson in his own academic publishing. Like Jefferson, Walker has strengths and weaknesses in his argument. Both of these men have made their cases known and in my own analysis I have deciphered which points are the strongest in each piece of historical writing.
In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson makes several arguments discussing the validity of negroes in the United States. Personally this speech made my skin crawl, but objectively Jefferson made some strong points, however misguided they may be. Jefferson’s strongest point was made with the lense of biology.
His argument states that the blacks are simply inferior to whites with respect to physical attributes. Jefferson details the inferiority in the differences in the skin color. He mentions that he doesn’t know the exact origins of this …show more content…
Walker’s strongest argument is his discussion about the hypocrisy of the whites in America. He writes about his encounter with an article in the newspaper. The article was talking about how barbarous the Turkish people were for their treatment of the Greeks. It stated how the Turks treated their Greek slaves more like animals than humans. In the same paper, there was an advertisement selling eight black men and four black women. Walker explains how he finds it laughable that the white people in America can call other countries heinous for doing the same things they are