Organizations & Clubs

Founding the Black Benevolent Society of Lawrence

At the outbreak of the Civil War, thousands of enslaved people, known as “contrabands of war,” began to escape to Union army camps in order to earn their freedom. In the fall of 1861, over 100 utterly destitute contrabands made their way to Lawrence where they found homes and employment as farmers or day laborers and as domestic servants for white families. Most people did not know how to read and write because slave codes forbade owners from teaching them these skills. So, in the evenings, people of all ages attended a contraband school taught by white women, and within months they secured necessary literacy and numeric skills by reciting Bible verses and singing songs of freedom.¹

By May 1862, Black residents had organized a Benevolent Society to assist more incoming refugees and improve their lives with weekly meetings and lectures.² The society raised money to meet the needs of indigent people by charging tickets (50¢ adults; 25¢ children) for grand festivals, “without distinction of sex or color,” after sponsoring free parades downtown to raise public awareness.³ Black ministers and congregants also established three denominational churches (Second Congregational, Second Baptist, and AME) that extended educational opportunities through respective Sabbath schools. These schools also celebrated the Fourth of July as early as 1862.⁴ By early 1868, the Black community embraced around 600 people within about 100 families. The majority of husbands and wives were self-sufficient in providing food, clothing, and shelter for their families, leaving around 75 individuals in need of benevolent assistance.⁵ Two years later, Rev. Thomas W. Henderson, AME pastor and President of the Benevolent Society, secured a new brick school on Vermont street for 180 Black students as a duly elected school board member.⁶

The First Grand Independent Benevolent Society of Kansas: Annual Assemblies, Emancipation Days, and Sermons

Having formed its own Benevolent Society in May 1868, Leavenworth, the state’s largest city, served as the headquarters of the First Grand Independent Benevolent Society (F.G.I.B.S) of Kansas for many years.⁷ The overall purpose of this incorporated “secretive” organization was for “the relief of the poverty-stricken classes,” specifically to care for the sick, to bury members honorably in full regalia, and to maintain the livelihoods of the widows and children of deceased members. In addition to Lawrence, Topeka, Wyandotte (KCK), and Atchison also had active societies by 1870.⁸

Each year, local societies sent their delegates to a general assembly that met over three days in late July in different cities. During this time, the F.G.I.B. Society would elect new Grand officers—a President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer—and five Trustees who had charge of the organization’s funds and property. Then on August 1st, thousands of people would celebrate Emancipation Day, the momentous date that Britain emancipated 750,000 enslaved people in the West Indies in 1834. Most annual assemblies and celebrations met in heavily populated northeastern cities, such as Leavenworth, Topeka, and Atchison, and the successful Black colony of Nicodemus in western Kansas sponsored the state society in 1884.⁹ After St. Joseph, Missouri sponsored Emancipation Day in 1882, the F.G.I.B. Society name extended to Missouri in 1885 with 17 lodges represented by over 2,000 people at the August 1st celebration held in Topeka that year.¹⁰

During many state assemblies, members also held memorial services at local churches to honor and remember deceased members who had passed away over the previous year. Local societies also arranged for various ministers to preach an annual sermon on benevolence usually around Memorial Day.¹¹

The Lawrence F.G.I.B. Society

Members of Lawrence’s Benevolent Society were fairly active from the late 1860s through the 1880s. At the August 1st 1869 celebration, civil rights activist Charles H. Langston stated that “white folks need not worry about how to take care of the freed negro, only grant them the same rights extended to white men and let them alone to work out their own salvation….[They are] as intelligent naturally as the whites and only need education to take rank with the best intellects in the land.” As evidence, he declared Frederick Douglass “the smartest speaker” in the US.¹² Some celebrations, including Lincoln’s initial Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, were also held with the local Black chapter of the United Sons of Protection Lodge, No. 1. These men honored deceased members by conducting burial ceremonies in regalia at cemeteries.¹³

In 1872, the Tribune claimed, “If it had not been for the colored people, our streets would have hardly a sign of the patriotic observance through the day.” On this occasion, the Second Baptist Church laid its cornerstone at Ohio and 9th streets under the auspices of the Benevolent Society of Kansas, composed of the First Grand Independent Lodge, No. 3 of Lawrence and other lodges from Leavenworth, Topeka, Tonganoxie, and Wakarusa. After a huge procession through Lawrence, directed by marshal Isaac Miller, a tin box that included a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the Benevolent Societies, among other items, was placed under the stone at the southeast corner.¹⁴

After profitable performances by white actors of a popular military play known as The Color Guard, Lawrence’s Benevolent Society staged this allegory with Black actors and a white lead actor for three nights at Liberty Hall in December 1881. A committee of arrangements, consisting of John L. Waller, Henry R. Pinckney, J. Cy Richardson, and Gabriel B. McCullough, announced that:

…the proceeds of the entertainment will be for the benefit of the helpless colored
people in our midst.
The committee appeals in the spirit of the broadest charity, to the liberal minded and
benevolent, to patronize this tableau and thus aid in relieving the distress of those brought to want by age and helplessness. The commenced effort now being made to our citizens feel confident that the project will be faithfully devoted to the object specified.¹⁵

A first-night reviewer thought “in every part there was palpable evidence of careful study.” Although the amount of money raised was not reported, a second-night reviewer observed that the audience “was much larger than the night before” and “The company present was made up largely of white people who were assigned the southern half of the hall.” “The play was presented in a very creditable manner. Some of the parts were extremely well carried out,” and “The various actors each received a liberal amount of applause.”¹⁶

Five years later, Lawrence’s Benevolent Society sponsored the region’s annual 1886 emancipation celebration and completely filled Haskell grove with well over 1,400 people.¹⁷ As a result, a new F.G.I.B.S. of Kansas and Missouri charter was filed with the secretary of state the following year, and Lawrence became its headquarters with directors Samuel Rice, Gus Miller, Cy Richardson, George Reynolds, and Henry Clark. By this time, the estimated value of this regional society had reached $10,000 (or over $331,000 in 2024 dollars).¹⁸

(Associated Charities)

However, in 1888, prominent white citizens organized a Lawrence chapter of the Associated Charities with a Central Committee dominated by 15 white churches and 10 white civic organizations. Out of the committee’s 35 members, three Black churches had only four representatives: Rev. Wellborn Wright or Troy Strode (Second Congregational), Henry Fuel and [Calvin?] McKissack (AME), and Rev. E.N. Cohron (Second Baptist) with no Black Masons or other Black business owners represented.¹⁹ White women of means were assigned to visit twelve districts across the city. They left their calling cards at private residences and businesses so “the deserving poor” could contact them about their needs, and residents dropped off their donations at Mrs. Nevison’s home (933 Rhode Island street).²⁰

At the first annual meeting one year later, secretary Gurdon Grovenor reported on “the kindly sympathy shown by the [visitors] to the poor” who sought “to make them feel that they were not forgotten or neglected but that they had friends who sympathized with them and desired to help them.” This “good work” had “supplied a long felt want in providing for a personal visitation of the poor and a careful inspection of their wants by experienced and judicious persons; it [had] largely stopped begging on the streets and indiscriminate almsgiving, and it [had] provided for the poor better than it [had] done before, and with less expenditure of money.” Alfred Whitman, chairman of the Executive Committee, agreed and noted the initial objection “that Lawrence was not large enough to need [the organization], [because] the number of needy was so small that the work of relief could be done just as well by individual effort.” His financial statement showed that out of $545 raised from two benefits, $461 had been “paid on 106 orders” for sick and destitute people (with no breakdown by race). As to future work, he believed that “true charity” should remove the causes of poverty: “The effort of all organized charity should be to bring about an equalization of opportunities so that all may share alike the manifold bounties so liberally supplied from the Father’s table.” However, as Rev. Wright had pointed out previously, no such “equalization of opportunities” existed for young Black citizens because local white businesses kept the “color-line” “sharply and eternally drawn” by denying them opportunities to earn decent wages.²¹

1890s and Beyond

Therefore, with the color-line drawn, the Black Benevolent Society carried on its own self-supported work without the Associated Charities, as its former president, Charles Langston, likely advised.²² For instance, 33 members supplied Mrs. Irvin (Caroline) Thomas with groceries and money to assist her during her husband’s illness.²³

Moreover, beginning in the 1890s, the society’s membership increased, and its leadership strengthened with new officers elected at local and state levels (see below). For the August 1st 1892 celebration in Leavenworth, 250 Lawrence members attended with Cy Richardson’s cornet band via an excursion train arranged by President Addie White and Secretary Frances Strode.²⁴ Two years later, the state F.G.I.B. assembly met in Lawrence and celebrated Emancipation Day at Starrett’s grove in North Lawrence. Mrs. Ella Clayton welcomed delegates and a Juvenile Society, organized by Mrs. Belle Jeans, offered a “very nice program” with mandolin and guitar music furnished by James Strode and Nat Langston.²⁵

In 1896, several local members, including Samuel Rice and Belle Jeans, attended the Kansas F.G.I.B.S. general assembly in Leavenworth with over 1,000 state members, and four Lawrencians were elected to state offices.²⁶ Shortly thereafter, the Lawrence lodge elected its 15 officers: Robert White, president; Nat Langston, vice-president; Adam S. Carter, recording secretary; James King, financial secretary; Alex Lee, treasurer; Isaac Miller, chairman trustee board; Charles H. Kuntze, marshal; Nathan Powell, chairman sick committee; Thomas B. Carter, chaplain; John W. Clark, sergeant-at-arms; Calvin McKissack, doorkeeper; and Jacob Mapp, captain, among others.²⁷

Based on this strong leadership, the Lawrence lodge sponsored the annual F.G.I.B. State convention with Leavenworth and Topeka societies over three days the following year. Miss Mayme Holland welcomed delegates with a warm address that hinted at local socio-economic conditions:

…After one year of labor in the various lodges of the state through the vicissitudes of life, once more this grand body has heard the gavel sound calling from labor to the day of reckoning [with many joys and sorrows]….Doubtless many feel with pride and pleasure the year’s prosperity. Some have come with heavy hearts to tell of vacant chairs and months of failure and reverses. Yet this is but the weaving of the fabric in the wave of life.

Since it has been the honor of the Benevolent society of Lawrence and the citizens of Lawrence to entertain other grand bodies of this organization in days gone by, I need not tell you how anxious we are to excel all former efforts at pleasantly locating and entertaining so distinguished a body and its visitors.

Our city…though one of the oldest, has not the facilities of larger and younger cities; yet we hope as you ramble the rural streets of the city, you will enjoy the fresh breeze as a trip to the country.

I shall not go farther into details than to say our business houses and public buildings and grounds are open for inspections, and…we hope you will enjoy yourselves.

We gladly welcome you to the privileges that we all enjoy, although we cannot say we have luxury to offer you because we have no luxury for ourselves; hence, we have none to offer you. Now on behalf of the order of this city, I welcome you to our hearts, to our homes, and to our city. May your days spent here be those of a thrice welcome guest. Yes, thrice welcome.²⁸

Again, five Lawrence members were elected or re-elected as State F.G.I.B.S. officers.²⁹

Over the next two years, the society experienced highs and lows. During the Spanish-American War, area soldiers were recruited into the all-Black 23rd Kansas Volunteer Infantry in July 1898. The local Benevolent Society arranged for an excursion train to Topeka so “a very large number” of people could deliver a flag for the Lawrence soldiers at Camp Leedy.³⁰ However, in December, the society suffered a huge loss when a massive 2 a.m. fire at the New York Store on Massachusetts street destroyed all of its furniture, lodge paraphernalia, books, papers, organ, and other items on the third floor. The lodge had no insurance.³¹ How the society dealt with this major blow was not reported, but more August 1st celebrations were held at Bismarck Grove, Eudora, and Lake View in 1899 and three Lawrencians served as state officers.³² A theatrical benefit for the AME and Baptist churches, staged by local Black actors at the Bowersock Opera House, was deemed a resounding success.³³ At the start of a new century, the Kansas F.G.I.B. Society held its annual session in Lawrence with a warm welcome by Miss Libbie Holland (Mayme’s older sister).³⁴

Over the next two years, two important events occurred. At the 1901 F.G.I.B. annual session held in Topeka around 25 Lawrence delegates attended. At this time, it appears that local “lodges,” composed of men, were separated from “branches,” composed of women. In their respective credential reports, Lawrence Lodge No. ² included William Carter, Charles Lowery, Robert White, William Johnson, Charles Kuntze, and Adam S. Carter, while Lawrence Branch No. ² involved M(aggie?) Fishback, Mattie Bryant, and Hattie Sparks.³⁵

Apparently, this distinction was important because in June 1902, the “Ladies Benevolent society, branch lodge No. ² of the First Grand Independent society,” purchased the north half of lot 48 on Vermont street for $750 from the Fraternal Aid Building and Investment Company.³⁶ The ladies’ two-story building was located at 806 Vermont, just behind a new massive three-story Fraternal Aid building at 123 W. 8th Street that opened in October 1904.³⁷ While the ladies used the upper story for their offices and meetings, Frank W. Brown (a white man) opened and managed the Model Steam Laundry in the lower story in December 1905.³⁸ Two months later, this steam laundry was damaged by fire, but thankfully, the Ladies Benevolent Society had insurance from the Manley company.³⁹ Despite this damage, the Lawrence lodge, now with 300 members, held the annual session of the State F.G.I.B. Society at this location in July 1906.⁴⁰

(The Knights and Ladies of Protection)

Meanwhile, in July 1903, another Black fraternal beneficiary society known as the Knights and Ladies of Protection, headquartered in Topeka, was organized in Lawrence with about 75 members. Dr. Joseph J. Kenner, president; Mrs. Belle Jeans, presiding lady; and William C. Brown, financial secretary were its elected officers.⁴¹ According to its national president, Col. James Beck, this society paid “death, disability and old age benefits [by] issuing certificates from $75.00 to $1,500” in order to uplift the negro race.⁴² It is not known how these benefits compared with Lawrence’s F.G.I.B.S. benefits.⁴³ 

In Summary

In sum, Lawrence’s Black Benevolent Society flourished from 1862 through at least the mid-20th century. As evidence of its state-wide reputation, the Lawrence Lodge and Ladies’ Branch sponsored annual sessions of the F.G.I.B. Society of Kansas (and other states) in Lawrence eight more times in 1909, 1912, 1915, 1918, 1921, 1924, 1933, and 1936, for a total of fourteen times since 1886. ⁴⁴ Over the years, several of its members, notably Addie White, were elected or reelected  to various State offices (see attached Officers).

The loss of Lawrence membership records makes it impossible to know all the names of local members over time. In addition to those already noted above, news reports sometimes provided other names. For instance, in 1916, Lawrence lodge officers were president Adam S. Carter; vice-president Charles Kuntze; secretary James King; and treasurer W.W. Morrill; and ladies’ branch officers were president Maggie Fishback; vice-president Mrs. A. Thompson; secretary Mollie Bivens; and treasurer, Hattie Sparks. ⁴⁵

Although it is not known when the Lawrence or mid-western lodges ceased to exist, Lawrence’s Benevolent Society conducted funeral services for innumerable members through at least 1946 (and beyond), based on respective obituaries, cards of thanks, and other records. In early 1948, “the Ladies Benevolent Society, Branch No. ²” of the F.G.I.B.S. of the State of Kansas sued previous owners over their real estate property. This lawsuit included Hattie Sparks, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and other trustees Myrtle Harvey, Cora Powell, Amelia Kizer, Mary Jackson, and Bertie (Ellis) L. Harris. Bertie’s husband, Leroy E. Harris, served as attorney for these plaintiffs. ⁴⁶ Perhaps the respective burials of these women marked the end of the long-lived Lawrence Benevolent Society (see attached Member Burials).