Vivid

by Beverly Jenkins

This started a discussion of the tradition of Black women helping the less fortunate members of the race. As early as 1793 the Female Benevolent Society of St. Thomas, organized by free Black women in Philadelphia, aided fatherless children and widows. In 1809 the free Black women of Newport, Rhode Island, came together as the African Female Benevolent Society. In 1821 the Daughters of Africa, whose members were the washerwomen and domestics of Philadelphia, combined their extra pennies and paid out sick and death benefits for those in the community. In 1840 New York City had the second largest Black population in the segregated free North, but by 1827, the Black women had already seen a need and formed the African Dorcas Association. They met weekly in sewing meetings to provide clothing for the needy children in the city's Free African Schools. Even in the slave city of Washington D.C., in 1828, free Black women took it upon themselves to help their own under the auspices of the Coloured Female Roman Catholic Benefit Society.