The Female Protection and the Sun Light: Two Contemporary Negro Mutual Aid Societies

Mutual Aid Societies were an integral part of the lifestyle of nineteenth-century American blacks. These precursors of contemporary insurance companies provided financial assistance to members in time of sickness and crisis and paid the burial costs of the departed member. Societies were founded in the East and throughout the South, both in rural and urban communities. Many of these societies— or burial clubs, as they are commonly called— continue to exist