If Africans were free before institutionalized slavery, if African-Americans are free after
the abolition of slavery, then how is it that those enslaved Negroes were not also free?
Are we to assume there was freedom, there was not freedom, and then there was
freedom again? Where there is human being, there is free will; where there is free will,
there is human being. If Negroes are human beings, then they possess every human
quality, every human essence, including freedom.  If Negroes are enslaved, they are
still as human as their masters, they are still just as free as are their master. When
the Negro slaves were emancipated, their humanity was not thereby established,
and so their freedom was not thereby created. A slave is just as human as a master;
a slave is just as free as a master. It may be that slaves submit to their masters
because they know their masters depend on, and need, their slaves. More often than
not, slaves accepted their fate, endured their slavery. The reasons why are not well-
known or self-evident. But, to submit is an act of volition.

Slavery is a dehumanizing institution; but, the slave is a human being.
Slavery is an inhuman practice; but, every slave is a human being, with every quality
possessed by every human being, including the attributes of freedom, dignity and
humanity.





Wage-slaves are free, because every human being is free. But wage-slaves are also
poor, and not because being human is to be poor.  Some human beings are not poor.
Being poor is not a human attribute, a human property. Being poor can be caused by
an inhuman circumstance, or by an inhumane condition. Laws may call one act of
trying to acquire wealth a crime of theft, and punish the criminal with imprisonment.
The same laws may call another activity of acquiring wealth legal, and reward the
lawful proprietor with even more wealth.





We need to abolish human poverty. We cannot abolish human freedom.





To be human is to be free.





Where you find poverty, there you find slavery, and vice versa. Those who survive in
poverty must submit to that poverty, without rebellion, without doing crime, or they will
be punished.  Submission to poverty is slavery.




Let's use a simple syllogism:
Major Premise: All human beings are free.
Minor Premise: All slaves are human beings.
Conclusion: All slaves are free.

Do you think this syllogism defies the canons of logic, or the meanings of words?





"Our minds possess by nature an insatiable desire to know the truth."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero