David Walker and Maria Stewart (Maria will be touched upon in a separate piece) was the precursor to Black nationalism and unity. David expressed how he felt about both the Republican and Democratic party; they didn’t care about the plight of African Americans. He felt that people of African descent had a right to be treated as equals under the law and deserved respect for building The United States of America. It wasn’t just African Americans free-labor that propelled the U.S into the forefront, but their ingenuity as well. Creating crops like rice, knowing how to work the land more efficiently than their European counter-parts. The few who came over as free peoples and the vast majority who came over as slaves brought needed skills with them. Skills that if left absent would have made America a footnote in history.

This invigorated freedom fighting spirit is what made David Walker public enemy number one in the U.S, because he didn’t sugarcoat anything to make it more palatable to White society.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html

People have to comprehend that the Puritan work ethic as Martin Luther King eloquently stated, didn’t build America; Black Americans did. Free Black Americans were taxed higher than any other ethnic group. (Which still lives on today in many areas of the U.S like Ferguson). Every facet within Black culture was marginalized, while being used as profit at the same time.

People of African descent did not sit back to leave their fate within the hands of White society. Unlike popular belief, the major reason why slavery was abolished was due to the tenacity of African Americans/Caribbean/South America. From the slave revolts, to the creation of Abolitionist, and to their uncompromising integrity.