"The tongue of detraction is busy against me.

I have no communion with the world--the world none with me.

The timid, the lukewarm, the base, affect to believe that my brains are disordered, and my words the ravings of a maniac.

Even many of my friends--they who have grown up with me from my childhood--are transformed into scoffers and enemies." The apathy of the press, and the apathy of the people were putting forth signs that the long winter of the land was passing away.
To a colored man belongs the high honor of having been the _courier avant_ of the slavery agitation.

This man was David Walker, who lived in Boston, and who published in 1829 a religio-political discussion of the status of the negroes of the United States in four articles.