"The first official status for a Christian Church community was registration as a burial club."
Back in May, I leashed up my dog for our evening walk and put in my earphones to listen to a podcast. As had been the case for months, my route involved walking past the refrigerated morgue truck parked outside Brooklyn Hospital on my way to Fort Greene Park. The rate of COVID-19 deaths was continuing to increase in many places across the country and the podcast episode I was listening to was entitled Why is the Pandemic Killing so Many Black Americans? In it, the host interviewed New York Times journalist Linda Villarosa and contradicted the notion of COVID-19 as the great equalizer.
The episode began with the story of Cornell Charles, nicknamed Dickey, who died after he attended New Orleans’ Governor’s Ball back in late February. Dickey was a member of the New Orleans’ Zulu Club and was one of several members who contracted COVID-19 as a result of that gathering. In telling this tragic story, Villarosa made a brief comment on the origins of the Zulu club as a ‘burial society’, an term that made me think about a passage I’d recently come across describing how the first official designation of Christians in the second century may have been as collegia funeratica. The entire episode on the racial disparities in mortality rates for COVID-19 is incredibly powerful, and Villarosa’s reporting movingly conveys the tragedy of Dickey Charles’ death and the loss his passing represented to the New Orleans’ community.
As I've since learned, the Zulu Club was part of the much broader phenomenon of black benevolent aid and burial societies that flourished from the end of slavery through the Jim Crow era. In the Zulu Club's case, in 1909, after slavery and in the midst of Jim Crow, members of the black community in New Orleans pooled resources together to be able to give members a sendoff and bury their dead in a dignified manner. The difficulties of burying their dead were the result of both extreme poverty and rampant discrimination.
I have been struck by the similarities between these 19th and 20th century clubs and how second century Christians were described in relation to wider Roman society. In Diarmaid McCullough’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, he states that “the first official status for a Christian Church community was registration as a burial club” and that one of the most frequent and normal interactions between a Christian and a Roman official would have involved bureaucratic transactions around cemeteries.[1]
Like the Zulu Club and the wider phenomenon of black benevolent aid and burial societies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, second century descriptions of Christian gatherings were of local associations that had common treasure chest, offered some basic aid for members in need, and were closely involved in offering burials for their members. It appears both types of societies offered a limited safety net and an informal type of life insurance, where membership and dues helped defray costs associated with burial and offered some protection for one’s family in case of injury or death. It also appears that while these associations performed these pragmatic tasks, they were also social clubs. Speaking of the burial societies of the second century, historian Robert Wilken describes how “The collegia [funeratica] gave men a sense of identity and comradeship, a social unit larger than the family and smaller than the state where they could meet together with friends, eat and drink, worship, play, and share their experiences.”[2]
The similarities between these ancient burial clubs and the benevolent aid and burial societies of the late 19th and 20th century are so apparent that I frequently had to check and recheck my notes to be sure that I was referring to the right millennium in the writing of this post. Here, then, I will look at Christianity’s origins as a burial club and then move on to explore the history of black mutual aid and burial societies, including their strong connection to the Black Church. I conclude by asking whether there aren't lessons to be gained from these histories for how congregations can serve the community today.
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Around 112 AD, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote what is considered to be the first known pagan reference to Christians who were gathering in his region of Bithynia and Pontus, now modern Turkey. In a letter addressed to the Roman emperor Trajan, Pliny described how he conducted trials of suspected Christians and sought counsel from the emperor on how they should be treated.[3] Also in this letter, Pliny stated that he had banned Christians from gathering in ‘hetaeria’, a pejorative word for associations.[4] In Trajan’s reply to Pliny the Younger, the emperor used the same term of hetaeria to convey broader imperial anxiety about how such associations can become political clubs and factions, “a natural breeding ground for grumbling about political affairs.”[5]
In this, it would seem that the term ‘hetaeria’ had similar connotations to modern usage of the word ‘faction’ or ‘sect’. The fact that Christians in this region were banned from gathering in this way and that both a governor and emperor saw such associations as troublesome to the smooth functioning of the Roman empire speaks volumes of the church’s complex relationship to power at that stage of its development.
Even so, as Robert Wilken points out in his journal article Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics, some Christians were already making strenuous efforts to help the Roman emperor understand the role of Christianity in less oppositional terms. In his Apologeticum from the late second century, Tertullian denied the notion that Christians were political clubs or factions and argued that they should instead be treated like the harmless - and legal - associations and societies that were to be found across the Roman empire.[6] Tertullian described Christian gatherings in terms that would have been familiar and nonthreatening to imperial authority. Like these other associations, Christians met for a common meal, had an initiation rite, and elected members to serve as officers and administrators. Such Christian associations “also had a common chest drawn from the contributions of members, looked out for the needs of its members, provided for a decent burial, and in some cities had its own burial grounds.”[7] Wilkens argues that such descriptions bear a striking resemblance to the collegia funeratica that were prevalent in second century Rome.[8]
This resemblance has led some scholars to believe that “the first official status for a Christian Church community was registration as a burial club” and that early Christians' close association with burial would last for several centuries.[9] The Roman catacombs of the late second century are evidence of this strong connection between early Christians and burial practices. While the catacombs often have been presented as refuges for Christians fleeing Roman persecution, the actual history of these burial sites is significantly less romantic. Most likely, they were simply the fruit of Christians operating similarly to collegia funeratica, purchasing and creating burial sites for their members in Rome’s soft tufa soil.[10]
What the catacombs do offer, however, is a glimpse into the early church’s evolving relationship to wealth, status, and power. Historian Diarmaid McCullough notes, “What is interesting about the earliest of these burials is the relative lack of social or status differentiation in them: bishops had no more distinguished graves than others, apart from a simple marble plaque to record basic details such as a name. This was a sign of a sense of commonality, where poor and powerful might be all one in the sight of the Saviour.”[11] There is a marked visual change among the graves of the mid-third century and beyond when wealthier Christians began paying for elaborate wall paintings and expensive stone coffins. Clear distinctions began to appear both in terms of wealth and where members stood in the church hierarchy. “The upper classes were beginning to arrive at church.”[12]
Particularly for the most vulnerable members of society, those for whom death was an ever-present prospect, there were practical benefits for being a part of such associations. These included the opportunity for mutual aid in times of difficulty, burial or support to offset payment for burial, and the promise of some basic support for one’s family in the case of injury and death. If such an arrangement sounds a bit like life insurance it is, in part, because the idea of insurance may have been an outgrowth of such burial associations, with membership obligations functioning as incipient forms of insurance agreements and regular dues functioning as premiums.[13] As we’ll see below, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, black benevolent aid and burial societies resulted in many of the first black-owned insurance companies.
The close association between the early Christians and burial was recognized through the fourth century. The emperor Constantine’s interest in Christianity stemmed from its connection to military victory and its long association with burials and death.[14] Constantine built six funeral churches in Rome as gifts to his Christian subjects, sites that were capable of accommodating thousands of Christians in death as well as in life. “The Emperor’s generosity showed a lively awareness that the Christian religion (and therefore presumably its God) had long paid particular attention to providing properly for burial.”[15]
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The history of New Orleans’ Zulu Club offers us an opportunity to look at much more recent examples of how burial societies served and functioned among another marginalized group in society. The Zulu Club originated as one of the many benevolent aid and burial societies which “were the first forms of insurance in the Black community where, for a small amount of dues, members received financial help when sick or financial aid when burying deceased members.”[16]
Robert L. Harris’ work on the history of black benevolent aid and burial societies describes how these associations became one of the most important organizations for black communities after the Civil War, even occasionally outstripping the church as the predominant organizational structure among free blacks.[17] These societies were a practical response to the economic insecurity of newly freed blacks in cities and the high mortality rate among black workers, and they served to offer a measure of security for families’ well being.[18]
In his article on “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama,” C.A. Spencer noted that in Alabama, during the period after the Civil War, the state was flooded with vast numbers of destitute people, both black and white, with almost no form of a social safety net to aid them. “The antebellum welfare system, which had financed aid to the poor by means of county tax monies, ceased to function for several years...Widows and orphans, the old and the sick, had nowhere to turn except to friends and relatives whose resources were equally meager.”[19] As was likely the case in the second century, these associations whereby members pooled resources together emerged out of desperation and practical need.
Like the collegia funeratica of the second century, however, these benevolent aid and burial societies were also social gatherings. “That these voluntary associations were evidence of early insurance against illness, accident, and death is beyond dispute, but that was not their principal reason for being.”[20] The Zulu club is a good example of how a burial society was also a social club with regular gatherings, expanded forms of charity, and major annual celebrations. The Zulu Club’s Governor's Ball of this past February was a fundraiser for broader educational programming in New Orleans, for instance. Harris writes that for the members themselves, such societies offered “support, comfort, and status to people adjusting to a strange environment, and were a key element in the transition from slavery to freedom.”[21]
Black churches played a critical role in such societies' development and continuation. This fact suggests the black church has often functioned for community members in ways that are closely aligned with the origins of Christianity. C.A. Spencer noted that, “The black churches provided religious and moral guidance and a much needed sense of belonging - in other words, group affiliation and social acceptance… Consequently, it was only natural that the black churches assumed leadership in the formation of benevolent societies designed to fulfill the security needs of their members. In fact, benevolent societies which were organized either directly or indirectly under the leadership of the black churches were the most numerous form of benevolent society during the postwar period. The majority of black congregations were associated with a benevolent society.”[22]
This history is generally not shared among most mainline white churches and so these models would not have been as prevalent or well-known among mainly white denominations such as the Episcopal Church. “Black benevolent societies had a much stronger religious orientation and closer ties with churches than most white benevolent societies, reflecting the strong influence of the black churches.”[23]
The connection between the spiritual, health, and burial needs of members of black benevolent societies can be seen in an example that is familiar to many Episcopalians. The founders of Philadelphia’s Free African Society, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, were first and foremost interested in forming a religious association. Over time, however, members urged Allen and Jones to establish a voluntary association for Philadelphia’s black community without religious distinction. Among its priorities, the society encouraged free blacks to legalize the marriages that had taken place under slavery, and it leased a burial plot for members as blacks were very often simply buried in unmarked graves at the edge of fields.[24]
Robert L. Harris’ work on “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830” offers critical insight into the main features of these societies. “The major features of black benevolent societies were sickness and disability benefits, pensions for deceased members' families, burial insurance, funeral direction, cemetery plots, credit unions, charity, education, moral guidance, and discussion forums. Although each organization did not encompass all of these activities, they in large measure characterize most of the voluntary associations.”[25]
Nursing services were often supplied by the rotation of watching members, and there were instances of societies having physicians on retainer.[26] Further, “the benevolent societies did not simply provide monetary assistance for disabled members but also supplied companionship in time of need. Baltimore's Free African Civilization Society, for instance, insisted that its elected stewards visit all shut-in members within twenty-four hours of written application.”[27]
Particularly in the south, these societies walked a fine line in relationship to legality and the empire in a way that was much like the early Christian collegia funeratica of the second century. In Charleston, South Carolina, the Brown Fellowship Society began at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church when its rector, the Rev. Alexander Garden, suggested that free blacks form a benevolent society. This suggestion reflected the discriminatory practices of St. Philip’s Church in that free blacks could attend services, be baptized, and be married at the church, but they could not participate in governance or be buried in the church cemetery.[28] Harris notes: “On October 12, 1794, the organization purchased a burial plot, to serve Charleston's entire black population, slave or free, mulatto or not.”
“Most likely, because of the restrictions placed on their activities, southern free black benevolent societies made burial arrangements one of their most prominent features. This responsibility relieved white officials from having to tend to black corpses, prevented a health hazard, and provided for burial in specific places rather than randomly in fields. For these reasons, no doubt, southern states tolerated the voluntary associations even though they breached the law. Free Blacks in the South took advantage of this opportunity to serve the additional needs of their people.”[29]
One fascinating aspect of these black benevolent societies is how many of these evolved into for-profit black-owned insurance companies while retaining many aspects of their past as mutual aid societies with strong connections to the church. The Union Central Relief Association of Birmingham, AL is a good example of how a benevolent society became the first black owned industrial insurance company.
Founded as an eleemosynary association of Sixth Avenue and Shiloh Baptist Church, the benefits it provided to black workers led the Alabama commissioner of insurance to reclassify the benevolent society as an industrial insurance company. “Premiums ranged from 5 cents per week with a ten dollar death benefit and a one dollar per week sick benefit to a premium of 40 cents per week with an eighty dollar death benefit and an eight dollar per week sick benefit.”[30] In some instances, this represented an only slightly more formalized version of the benefits provided by benevolent societies and it’s clear that such insurance companies were rarely profitable, in part because they were not intended to be. “These societies still referred to their policy-owners as members and premiums as dues because they were still in the process of evolving from benevolent societies or fraternal benefit orders into full-fledged industrial insurance companies. In addition, many members still considered the commercial connotation of insurance as being repugnant.”[31]
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Whether speaking about the benevolent aid and burial societies of the second century or those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it's clear that these associations served practical and community needs at a time when social safety nets were either nonexistent or inaccessible due to discrimination toward the population served. This is important to consider as the past few decades of United States history have seen both rampant financial deregulation, rising inequality, and the gutting of social safety net programs for the poor. This has made it harder for many Americans to simply survive. Approximately 30 million Americans are without any form of health insurance coverage, and many millions more - including undocumented immigrants - are unable to access many of the remaining social safety net programs to do exist. Further, as COVID-19 has starkly shown, there are significant racial disparities in who becomes seriously ill and dies and this is oftentimes closely connected to poverty.
Death is not, in fact, the great equalizer, and so the most vulnerable populations have always had to pool resources together to offer some minimal support to one another in extreme situations. The historical evidence on how Early Christians and the Black Church did this in the past can also serve as inspiration for the church today.
Such collegia funeratica have had a longstanding association with churches, yet on account of their organizational distinctiveness, they have also been able to focus on the practicalities of offering benefits for the most vulnerable. It's immediately clear to me, at least, how and why the combination of social club and practical benefits would work within a church, and so I'm left wondering why there aren't more of these societies around today. Reviving this model would entail drawing on a profound history - both ancient and contemporary - and would help strengthen congregations' ability to serve community members' most urgent needs today.
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[1] Diarmaid McCullough, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. page 190
[2] Wilken, Robert L. “Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics.” Church History, vol. 39, no. 4, 1970, pp. 437–458. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3162925. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020, Page 451
[3] Letter X.96
[4] Wilken, Robert L. “Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics.” Church History, vol. 39, no. 4, 1970, pp. 437–458. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3162925. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020, Page 451
[5] Wilken, Robert L. “Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics.” Church History, vol. 39, no. 4, 1970, pp. 437–458. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3162925. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020, Page 452
[6] Wilken, Robert L. “Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics.” Church History, vol. 39, no. 4, 1970, pp. 437–458. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3162925. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020, Page 452
[7] WILKEN, ROBERT LOUIS. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them: Second Edition. Yale University Press, 2003. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bdb2. Accessed 14 Sept. 2020. Pp.31-47.
[8] Wilken, Robert L. “Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics.” Church History, vol. 39, no. 4, 1970, pp. 437–458. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3162925. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020, Page 454
[9] Diarmaid McCullough, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 160
[10] Diarmaid McCullough, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 160
[11] Diarmaid McCullough, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 160
[12] Diarmaid McCullough, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 160
[13] WILKEN, ROBERT LOUIS. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them: Second Edition. Yale University Press, 2003. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bdb2. Accessed 14 Sept. 2020. Pp.31-47.
[14] McCullough, Diarmaid. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 292
[15] McCullough, Diarmaid. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page 292
[16] History of Zulu Club - http://www.kreweofzulu.com/history
[17] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020.
[18] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020., page 615
[19] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 251
[20] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 611
[21] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020
[22] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 256
[23] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 257
[24] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 616
[25] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 614
[26] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 255
[27] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 616
[28] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. 619
[29] Harris, Robert L. “Early Black Benevolent Societies, 1780-1830.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 603–625. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25088988. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. 619
[30] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 260
[31] Spencer, C. A. “Black Benevolent Societies and the Development of Black Insurance Companies in Nineteenth Century Alabama.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 251–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/274833. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020. Page 260
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