Interestingly, the first independent Black church in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, was established by the leaders of the second African American mutual-aid society in the country, the Free African Society in Philadelphia. The first official mutual-aid society was organized in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1780 (Hine, Hine and Harrold 2010), followed by the Free African Society (often erroneously believed to be the first), established by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in 1787. Allen and Jones also founded the AME Church in Philadelphia in 1816. Six years earlier, the first African American insurance company, African Insurance Company, was established in Philadelphia (Du Bois 1907, 98). The Negro convention movement also began in Philadelphia, in 1830, and was an important stimulus to the growth of beneficial societies across the nation (Pollard 1980, 231). Here we see the interconnectedness in one city between the different forms of society and help, and between the various institutions that provided them with solidarity and support.
Black mutual-aid and beneficial societies spread rapidly in the early 1800s, especially in the North and in urban areas (Jones 1985, 126; Weare 1993). Although more common in the North, many southern cities, such as New Orleans, Charleston (Berry 2005), and Richmond (Weare 1993), also had these societies. By 1830 there were more than a hundred mutual-aid societies in Philadelphia alone, and about thirty in Baltimore. In 1855, 9,762 African Americans were members of 108 Black mutual-aid societies in Philadelphia (Hine, Hine, and Harrold 2010, 183). Du Bois (1907) focused much of his research on the various societies in Baltimore.
Du Bois (1898, 19) described the business methods of beneficial societies. A group of people who know each other through their neighborhood or church or other organization join an organization to provide a service or set of services. They agree to pay an initial fee to join and a weekly or monthly fee to keep the common fund operating. A specified portion is paid to any member who needs the service, whether he or she is sick and needs a doctor, hospitalization, an income while convalescing, or needs to be buried or needs food or clothing. Sometimes other members donate their services instead of, or in addition to, funds from the organization’s treasury. Some societies hire their own doctor or nurse to attend to members’ health needs (Berkeley 1985). According to Pollard, these societies paid death benefits of between $10 and $20, and sick benefits from $1 to $3, each on premiums of 25 cents on average (1980, 231). Weare similarly records that premiums ranged from 25 to 37 cents per month and that benefits ranged from $1.50 to $3 per week for sickness and $10 to $20 for death claims (1993, 9). Many families belonged to two or more aid societies in order to increase their sick benefits.
Although the first mutual-aid societies were male only or dominated by men, by the 1790s women had established their own mutual-aid and beneficial societies (Berkeley 1985; Jones 1985; Lerner 1974; Boylan 1984). Berkeley contends that “black women were often in the vanguard in founding and sustaining autonomous organizations designed specifically to improve social conditions within their respective communities. . . . In creating autonomous institutions to solve the problems caused by inadequate health care services, substandard housing, economic deprivation, and segregated schools, black women served notice that they felt a special responsibility to provide social welfare programs for their communities” (1985, 184). Black women established day nurseries, orphanages, homes for the aged and infirm, hospitals, cemeteries, night schools, and scholarship funds (Berkeley 1985; Jones 1985; Lerner 1974). They pooled “meager resources,” sponsored fund-raisers, solicited voluntary contributions (Berkeley 1985, 85), and used modest dues that even the “poorest women managed to contribute” to meet vital social welfare needs (Jones 1985). Women’s mutual-aid societies proliferated and were sometimes more numerous than all-male or men-oriented ones, and became influential in the Black community throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s. “In 1793 Philadelphia’s Female Benevolent Society of St. Thomas took over the welfare functions of the city’s Free African Society” (Hine, Hine, and Harrold 2010, 116). This was one of the first female societies among African Americans. Other Black women’s societies in Philadelphia included the Benevolent Daughters, the Daughters of Africa, and the American Female Bond Benevolent Society. In Petersburg, Virginia, half of the mutual-aid societies were exclusively female, such as the Sisters of Friendship, Sisters of Charity, and Ladies Union (Jones 1985, 126).
Mutual-aid, benevolent, self-improvement, and fraternal organizations also proliferated after the Civil War (Hine, Hine, and Harrold 2010, 183). Berry explains that after emancipation, African Americans sought to pool their resources and work together in order to survive (2005, 102). Those who were free before the Civil War provided the only economic base the African American community had immediately after emancipation. The mutual-aid societies provided a structure for their collective efforts.5 Petersburg, Virginia, had twenty-two different voluntary societies in 1898 (Jones 1985). The Workers’ Mutual Aid Association in Virginia, for example, was organized in 1894. In 1898 it had twelve stockholders and two salaried officers, 10,053 members, an annual income of $3,600, and property worth $550 (Du Bois 1898). It paid sick and death benefits totaling $1,700 during that year (20). The Cotton Jammers and Longshoremen’s Association No. 2 of Galveston, Texas, was more than a trade union, according to Du Bois. It invested $1,000 in tools. Members and “different gangs at work” paid dues to the organization, and the association paid sick and death benefits (26).
By 1898, 15 percent of Black men and 52 percent of Black women in New York City belonged to a mutual-aid society, even though nationally the number of mutual-aid societies was beginning to decline (Du Bois 1898, 19). If New York City is typical, women were overwhelmingly members of mutual-aid societies at the end of the nineteenth century. And although there were fewer aid organizations by the beginning of the twentieth century, the record shows that many remained strong and effective. It is important to note that while the federal Freedmen’s Bureau engaged in similar efforts to help newly freed African Americans during the first Reconstruction era, this did not prevent African Americans from organizing on their own and continuing to provide aid through local (and sometimes regional) Black-owned and Black-controlled organizations.
The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association
Mary Frances Berry, in her biography of Callie House, describes the dual purpose of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, founded in 1896 in Tennessee. The primary purpose was to pressure legislators to enact legislation to establish pensions for ex-slaves. Its secondary purpose was to provide aid and relief to members in need. The mutual-aid function operated continuously, even after the pension movement declined, kept the organization solvent, and helped to protect it from prosecution for mail fraud (as a lobbying organization, the association was accused of accepting unlawful payments through the mail). Even after giving up the pension legislation mission by 1916, the association remained a mutual-aid society, some of the chapters continuing mutual-aid activities until 1931 (Berry 2005). Berry’s biography provides a comprehensive account of the organization’s operations, members’ political activities, and the importance of the association’s mission to provide economic and social welfare safety nets.
The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association took on what was “essentially a poor people’s movement” (Berry 2005, 51), demanding pensions for the formerly enslaved to compensate for years of unpaid labor. The association also provided medical and burial assistance. In addition, it offered a democratic structure in which local people had control and a voice, “at a time when blacks were practically disfranchised or on the verge of becoming so throughout the South” (51–52). The association emphasized self-help, and local chapters were required to use part of their dues for sick benefits and the burial of members (61). Many of the founders and charter members of the association already had experience in a mutual-aid society. Lead organizer Callie House “emphasized the need for local mutual benefit activities as the linchpin of their solidarity” (94). Members paid an initial fee of 25 cents, plus 20 cents per month in dues. Local organizations paid $2.50 for a charter. Also, if needed, the association could collect “extraordinary” collections