Final answer:
Free black leaders suspected that the American Colonization Society's repatriation efforts were rooted in the belief that blacks and whites could not coexist as equals, a stance that indirectly supported racial inferiority theories rather than genuine emancipation and abolition.
Step-by-step explanation:
Free black leaders believed that the American Colonization Society's (ACS) efforts to repatriate blacks in Africa were not genuine solutions to issues of emancipation and abolition. Figures like David Walker highlighted the need for a collective global black resistance against slavery, and many within the African American community deemed the notion of colonization as racially motivated and unsatisfactory.
Importantly, key members of the ACS did not believe that black and white people could live as equals, which further fueled skepticism among free black leaders towards the organization's true intentions. The colonization movement, therefore, was largely rejected by free blacks who sought assimilation and the assertion of their rights, ideals upheld by leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Alexander Crummell.