"I repeat, that emancipation embraces the idea that the eman- cipated must be placed back where slavery found them, and restore to them all that slavery has taken away from them. Merely to cease beating the colored people, and leave them in their gore, and call it emancipation, is nonsense. Nothing short of an entire reversal of the slave system in theory and practice — in general and in particular — will ever accomplish the work of redeeming the colored people of this country from their present condition. Let the country, then, no longer act the part of the thief. Let the free states no longer act the part of them who passed by on the other side, and leaving the colored people half dead, especially when they were beaten by their own hands, and so call it emancipation — raising a wonderment why the half dead people do not heal themselves."
~Hosea Easton, Treatise on the Intellectual Character, and the Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the United States, 1837, Boston.
*Fya from way back ova deah. Beloved predated David Walker Fya 2 years (boston yuts dem cohm wit dit -awo)