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 of 5 cents per member to defray unusual expenses.
Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke
Elsa Barkley Brown explores the role of Maggie Lena Walker and other women in the development and expansion of the Independent Order of Saint Luke, which was failing when Walker became grand secretary in 1899. The Independent Order of Saint Luke began as a women’s sickness and death mutual-benefit association in Maryland in 1867. The organization accepted men starting in the 1880s, when it expanded to New York and Virginia (Barkley Brown 1989, 616). When Walker took over, a majority of the board of directors were also women. They became politically active in their communities and served as role models for other women and girls. Walker “insisted that organization and expansion of women’s roles economically and politically were essential ingredients without which the community, the race, and even black men could not achieve their full potential” (621). Women members argued that their community could not be developed fully by men alone, and that Black women had to be integral to the process (629). Walker also institutionalized a notion of family that encompassed everyone who worked within the organization (619), which helped to cement community ties.
Walker built up the Richmond branch of the Order of Saint Luke, which later became the organization’s headquarters, adding a department store and a bank (the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank) in 1903; the purpose of the bank was to provide loans to the community. The Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank also owned six hundred homes by 1920. By 1929 it had bought up all the other Black-owned banks in Richmond and became the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, the board of which was chaired by Walker. “By 1924, the Independent Order of Saint Luke had 50,000 members, 1500 local chapters, a staff of 50 working in its Richmond headquarters and assets of almost $400,000” (Bois 1998).
In terms of Walker’s leadership and perspective on Black women and collective action, Barkley Brown writes:
Undergirding all of their work was a belief in the possibilities inherent in the collective struggle of black women in particular and of the black community in general. Walker argued that the only way in which black women would be able “to avoid the traps and snares of life” would be to “band themselves together, organize, . . . put their mites together, put their hands and their brains together and make work and business for themselves.” The idea of collective economic development was not a new idea for these women, many of whom were instrumental in establishing the Woman’s Union, a female insurance company founded in 1898. . . . The institutionalization of this notion of family cemented the community. (618–19)
Barkley Brown makes several important points about how collective economic activity came naturally to the Black women leaders of Saint Luke’s, because they had been involved in other organizing and economic development activity. The women also recognized that men needed to work together with them. This created a strong institution that expanded economically, socially, and politically.
Major Contributions of Mutual-Aid Societies
In addition to providing assistance to members, mutual-aid and beneficial societies also taught members many skills, both individually and collectively. Du Bois (1907) lists four major contributions: they encouraged economic cooperation, inspired self- and group confidence, consolidated small amounts of capital, and taught business methods. These important skills were transferable to other spheres of life, and set the stage for future collective economic activities. There are many examples throughout this volume of African American women and men who were first involved in mutual aid and then became involved in more formal cooperative businesses. Halena Wilson, the president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a co-op developer, started out as the leader of a mutual-aid society, for example (see chapters 4 and 7). Charles Prejean, the former executive director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, another example, notes that many of the early activists in Black southern
