Health and life insurance is the most popular way families shelter against hardships including loss of property, mobility, employment, or life itself.
But when insurance companies started using myths that Black people were more at risk of early death to reject coverage, we found another way forward.
Mutual aid societies were established in northern cities as early as 1787 for members to pay into a fund with a guaranteed promise of aid when needed.
But it seemed that dispensing money for food, clothing, shelter, and even classes and job training would not be enough to silence the haters.
Societies often had to publicly address suspicions that aid payouts were somehow encouraging “extravagance”.
How would organizations respond?
Philadelphia’s Free African Society published their rebuttal in the paper essentially stating that the heat was merely jealousy over how thoroughly they took care of their own!
Sadly, most aid societies shut down due to population expansion, low membership and funding. The rare exception was the New York African Society for Mutual Relief (founded in 1809) which prospered into the 1950s.
Turns out, Black folks have been doing what crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe do now since way back!
The presence and prosperity of mutual aid societies for centuries goes to show when others reject our needs, we will build with “mutual interest, mutual benefit, [and] mutual relief” in mind.