BLACK BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES
The magnificent buildings of Charleston’s historically White benevolent organizations such as the Hibernian Society, Hebrew Benevolent Society, and South Carolina Society can still be seen in Charleston’s historic district, testaments to their charitable histories. The groups remain active today, and membership is considered an honor.
Yet relatively little remains of the free Black organizations that similarly served as a type of life and health insurance, provided for members and their families in times of crisis, and sometimes even served as credit unions where members could pool money to provide loans or purchase land.
It was difficult to maintain Black organizations in 19th century Charleston, as a 1740 state law forbade Blacks, free or enslaved, from gathering without a White person present, an effort meant to minimize rebellion conspiracies. Blacks were not allowed to worship in segregated churches without White oversight.
Within this context, five free Black members of St. Philip’s Church founded the Brown Fellowship Society in 1790 to meet essential needs their church did not. For although St. Philip’s allowed free Blacks to worship, be baptized and marry there, they could not be buried in its churchyard.
The BFS established a cemetery for its members on the southeast corner of Calhoun and Pitt streets. Its elite membership was originally limited to 50 men. Though it has generally been said that only mulatto, or mixed-race, men with light complexions were considered for membership, that claim is disputed by some scholars today.
Historians agree, however, that class and financial success were key considerations for membership. BFS members were successful, well-established artisans and business owners who paid a $50 membership fee, as well as annual dues.
Though the BFS was Charleston’s most elite Black aid organization, it was not the only one. In 1843, Thomas Smalls, a dark-skinned man who had been rejected for membership in the BFS, established the Society for Free Blacks of Dark Complexion. In addition to being darker, its members tended to be younger, less-established artisans.
They later renamed themselves the Humane Brotherhood and established a cemetery adjacent to that of the BFS with a fence separating the two.
In the mid-19th century, the Friendly Moralist Society, which patently did not accept dark men, formed a group of free light-skinned mulattos. Speaking to the Society in 1848, Michael J. Eggart, a free person of color, warned they lived in a tenuous “middle ground,” oppressed on one side by “the prejudice of the White man” and on the other by “the deeper hate of our more sable brethren.”
Several other Black organizations established cemeteries in 1856 on what was once part of Magnolia-Umbra plantation in Charleston’s Neck area, including the Brotherly Association, Friendly Union Society, Christian Benevolent Society, Unity and Friendship Society, and Humane and Friendly Society – all institutions where free Blacks could realize their autonomy and cultural identity, according to Michael Barga of the Social Welfare History Project. Barga noted that politics, religion and slavery were never discussed at any of these organizations’ meetings.
Though some Black benevolent organizations survived the Civil War, apparently the Humane Brotherhood did not, as no records thereafter have been found. Two years after a 1943 city ordinance prohibited private organizations from maintaining graveyards, its cemetery, as well as that of the BFS, were sold to the Catholic Diocese of Charleston to develop a parking lot for the new Bishop England High School.
The BFS disbanded after that and its c. 1902 Meeting Hall was demolished. Members purchased a new cemetery space adjacent to other Black burial societies in the Charleston Neck. Though some gravestones from the old cemeteries were moved to the new site, evidence suggests no bodies were reinterred, though the Diocese long maintained they had removed the deceased’s remains.
In 2001, as the College of Charleston built Addlestone Library on the high school’s former site, several graves were discovered. Descendants of the BFS and Humane Brotherhood worked with the college to honor the dead with a ceremony and memorial signage.
Today these cemeteries, along with 21 others, make up the Charleston Cemetery History District, designated as a National HIstoric Landmark in 2017. A wealth of individual stories can be found within their gates.
Bernard E. Powers, “Brown Fellowship Society,” in South Carolina Encyclopedia.
Brown Fellowship Society Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina - Find A Grave Cemetery
Charleston Evening Post, 1990.
Harlan Greene. “Addlestone Library and Rivers Green.” College of Charleston’s 250th Anniversary Tour. Discovering Our Past: College of Charleston Histories. 2020.
Harlan Greene and Jessica Lancia. “The Holloway Scrapbook: The Legacy of a Charleston Family.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine, vol. 111, no. 1/2, 2010, pp. 5–33.
Robert Behre, “Behre: Preventing Charleston’s Historic Cemeteries from Becoming Graveyards,” Post and Courier (Charleston, SC, Feb. 13, 2021),
Robert L. Harris Jr. “Charleston’s Free Afro-American Elite: The Brown Fellowship Society and the Humane Brotherhood” in the South Carolina Historical Magazine, vol. 82, pp. 289-310.
Timothy John Hyder, “Charleston’s Magnolia Umbra Cemetery District: A Necrogeographic History” (University of South Carolina, 2014).
