Early Examples of Black Philanthropists

Black Americans, a constituent group that predates the nation’s constitutional founding in 1776 (Hannah-Jones Reference Hannah-Jones2019; Jagmohan Reference Jagmohan2015), have operated under conditions of race-based exclusion from full participation in American society. Importantly, labeling Black people as a racial group was not based on any an innate, biological characteristic but, rather, has been recognized as a social construct. Racists constructed race and used perceived features of difference, including skin color, hair texture, supposed cranial measurements, and other pseudo-scientific rationales (Du Bois Reference Du Bois, Marable and Mullings2009), as the basis for subjugating an entire group of human beings with ancestral (or blood) connection to the African continent. Black race-making, then, rather than being a biological component of nature, was a product of policy (Delany Reference Delany2004)—a policy of legalized oppression that was used to subjugate any person with African blood. As a result, from enslavement to Jim Crow to the post-Civil Rights Era, Black people have experienced marginality in every arena of life (e.g., political, economic) based on the policy of constructed racial inferiority, domination, and subjugation.

Dawson (Reference Dawson2001) described this state of marginal status: “From the end of the Civil War to the advent of the Civil Rights Movement…neither black property rights, employment rights, constitutional rights, nor human rights were protected by the state or respected within civil society” (p. 26). Black people faced White racial terror first as enslaved property and later as second-class citizens. Desmond Jagmohan (Reference Jagmohan2022), analyzing Harriet Jacobs’ (2001) theoretical contributions, wrote that “In the first place, slaves (as property) [were] denied juristic personality—that is, they [were] denied recognition as legal persons” (p. 2). This work also noted the wrongs that Black women in particular encountered under chattel slavery, such as the brutality of rape. Robbed of their humanity, Black people were seen as private property and, thus, lacked the ability to participate in critical public discourse (Dawson Reference Dawson2001).

Within this exclusionary context, Black people deployed their philanthropic spirit through the giving of time, service, talents, and the financial resources available to them. In this way, Black people often deployed their philanthropy through counterpublics, or formal and informal institutions, activities, practices, and spheres of influence where Black people could oppose their subjugation and offer philanthropy as remedies to the oppressive conditions of their lives (Dawson Reference Dawson1994).

The idea of time and service as tools of philanthropy for the enslaved community extended to educational pursuits. Although educating the enslaved was forbidden in many jurisdictions, those with learned abilities did work to share them with others in the community. Frederick Douglass’s (Reference Douglass1855) narrative provides an example. First, while living with Sophia Hugh in Baltimore, Douglass asked his mistress to teach him to read after he observed her reading the Bible. While this teaching project was short-lived due to Master Hugh’s objections, Douglass acquired reading and language abilities and sought to impart this knowledge to others who were similarly enslaved. By reading Webster’s spelling book and passages in the Columbian Orator, Douglass learned that slavery was not ordained by the “Almighty”; instead, he understood that “all of slavery and oppression” had its foundation “in the pride, the power and the avarice of man” (Douglass Reference Douglass1855, p. 55). This revelation, Douglass wrote, “haunted me, stung me, and made me gloomy and miserable” (Douglass Reference Douglass1855, p. 55). This unsettledness stirred Douglass and affirmed his earlier feelings that the “birthright of every man” was liberty. This is an example of the power that literacy and other educational skills had on those who were enslaved; it could transform from the inside out. Then, while seeking to share this birthright with other Black people in the Eastern Shore, Douglass, for a brief period, used his time and talents to lead a Sabbath School in the private home of a free colored man, James Mitchell. Together, in the domestic quarters, Douglass taught lessons to his fellow Black peers with the hope of creating “lovers of knowledge” (Douglass Reference Douglass1855, p. 70). Mitchell’s in-kind gift of his home and Douglass’s time and talents are examples of the philanthropic oppositional spheres early Black philanthropists created to navigate within the constraints they experienced. The risks were great: Teaching an enslaved person to read could stir in them feelings of discontent, such as those Douglass experienced, and lead them to flee or openly resist. Thus, the Sabbath School Douglass and Mitchell created was ultimately halted by Mr. Hugh (Douglas 1855). The surveillance and disruption of Black people’s philanthropic pursuits were common themes surrounding the Black philanthropic experience during this period.

According to Harriet Jacobs (Reference Jacobs2001), the consequence of the 1789 Constitutional exercises and centuries of social practice made property the defining characteristic of all bound by the institution of slavery. Jacobs, speaking about her life as an enslaved woman in North Carolina, wrote, “O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel” (Jacobs Reference Jacobs2001, p. 49). Jagmohan (Reference Jagmohan2022) identified the themes of property in Jacobs’ story that made living under ownership, particularly for enslaved women, disturbing:

The legal and political structure made these conditions or “wrongs” of property real and enforceable (D. Jagmohan, personal communication, September 8, 2020). Thus, manumission became an essential feature of philanthropic practice during this time. To obstruct and transform what was a legally sustained institution, Black people in the South and the North used their financial assets to secure freedom through self-purchase and the purchase of loved ones.

One example of money given to secure the freedom of another enslaved person came from Harriet Jacobs’ grandmother. After earning a modest income through the sale of her popular cakes and crackers, Harriet’s grandmother, a former enslaved woman, saved enough funds to buy the freedom of Phillip, one of her children. Describing this path to freedom, Jacobs (Reference Jacobs2001) wrote that “The brave old woman still toiled on, hoping to rescue some of her other children. After a while she succeeded in buying Phillip. She paid eight hundred dollars, and came home with the precious document that secured his freedom” (Jacobs Reference Jacobs2001, p. 26). In another example, education theorist Fanny Jackson Coppin (Reference Coppin1913) dedicated her book, Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching, to her aunt Sarah Orr Clark, “who, working at six dollars a month saved one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and bought my freedom” (para. 1). Such acts transformed Black people from non-human property to freed human beings and was a common philanthropic practice among Black women. Dorothy Roberts (Reference Roberts2017) added that “free Black women with the means to do so purchased freedom for their daughters and sisters” (p. 50).

Black individuals with relative wealth and privilege had access to financial resources that enabled them to contribute more freely to philanthropic causes like manumission. While the full story of the emergence of a class of Black elites is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to note that Black people were often separated by status, and these status designations frequently included markers of social standing. For example, even during enslavement, Black individuals with greater access to the people who owned them often benefited from this proximity (Graham Reference Graham2000). These advantages could include better nutrition, clothing, and access to education compared to those enslaved and forced to work on plantations. However, this proximity sometimes made them more vulnerable to sexual violence (Graham Reference Graham2000; Jacobs Reference Jacobs2001).

Additionally, preferences for lighter-skinned Black people emerged as a marker of social standing. Darker-skinned Black individuals were often deemed less favorable, and this system of exclusion created conditions in which lighter-skinned individuals were privileged over their darker-skinned peers (Graham Reference Graham2000). This debate continued into the social and service organizations of the nineteenth century (discussed below). Furthermore, free Black people in both the South and the North had access to opportunities for wealth creation (e.g., jobs, property ownership) that were often unavailable to their enslaved counterparts. These mechanisms of differentiation created a system where some Black individuals were able to participate actively in manumission philanthropy in ways that others could not, due to their social characteristics.

As a result, while social characteristics determined who had the means to engage in manumission philanthropy, the practice itself extended beyond just the freed men and women involved. “One mother in Augusta, Georgia,” according to Roberts (Reference Roberts2017), “remained a slave herself so that she could emancipate her five children with earnings from extra work” (p. 50). Black people who were bound by the institution of slavery expressed their commitment to the spirit of philanthropy and freed their loved ones held in bondage. This act of other-regarding love that disrupted the relationship between Black people and society was not an activity reserved for those with relative forms of privilege. In another example, in 1766, Absalom Jones, an enslaved person living in Philadelphia, earned enough money to purchase the freedom of his wife, Mary King, before securing additional provisions to purchase his own freedom (Green Burnette Reference Green Burnette, Rooney and Sherman2005). The mission of securing freedom through philanthropic giving was a central feature of Black philanthropy during this period. This effort was undertaken by Black individuals both with and without relative wealth, including those who endured the most severe conditions of enslavement.

These stories of Black philanthropy were guided by a worldview that challenged the American government, whose laws constrained and shaped Black life, humanity, and philanthropic possibility. Scholars have argued that many Black collectivities and their charitable actions throughout U.S. history sought to push America towards fuller forms of democracy and liberalism (Dawson Reference Dawson2001; King Reference King1968). Black people placed “an impassioned appeal for America”…“to live up to the best of its values, and support…a multiracial democratic society” (Dawson Reference Dawson2001, pp. 15, 16). Despite these efforts, conditions of powerlessness and exclusion perpetrated by forces of White supremacy were not unique to Black people living in the South; indeed, Black people’s northern philanthropic actions, too, operated under variable systems of race-based exclusion.

Black Philanthropists in the North During Slavery

Black philanthropists in the North were similarly active during the period of enslavement. Some Black individuals lived in “free” states, where the geographic shift allowed them to acquire greater financial resources and some privileges associated with freedom. This environment fostered the development of new forms of philanthropy. Nevertheless, the political and economic topography that dominated the South permeated the North as well, revealing its implicit and explicit features of racism that shaped the lived experiences for Black people in cities like New York and Philadelphia. In the following section, I outline the context Black people faced in the North and how Black people used the emergence of organizational units to respond to the discrimination they encountered.

Political philosopher Martin Delany helped to set the context for the Black experience in non-slaveholding states in the mid-nineteenth century. Delany (Reference Delany2004) aimed to shorten the political and economic distance between those who lived in the slaveholding South and those who lived in other parts of the United States. Delany criticized the political and economic life chances of free Black people living in non-slaveholding states. Too often, labor opportunities were limited to roles that reinforced prevailing ideas of Black inferiority. On the southern plantations, enslaved Black people were relegated to servant roles; these occupations were similarly reserved for free Black people in the North. Importantly, while Black people were barred from voting in most free states, there were notable exceptions. In New York, for example, Black people were able to vote if they met property-owning qualifications, such as owning $250 dollars in real estate. In other jurisdictions such as Ohio, “the privilege [of voting] is granted by judicial decision, based on a ratio of blood, of an admixture of more than one-half white” (Delany Reference Delany and Levine2003, p. 271). Without political equality for all Black people, Delany argued, perpetual inferiority across economic domains would be a constant challenge. By keeping Black people in servitude (slaveholding states) or subserviency (non-slaveholding states), the “policy” of White supremacy was sustained (Delany Reference Delany2004). In this context, Northern mutual aid societies emerged and played a key role in disrupting and transforming some of the patterns of inequality faced by Black communities.

The Development and Centrality of Black Churches

Perhaps the most significant philanthropic institutions in the Black community were the Black churches.Footnote ⁵ Seven denominations have historically been aligned with Black communities: African Methodist Episcopal (AME), African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, Church of God in Christ, National Baptist Convention–USA, Inc., National Baptist Convention of America, and the Progressive National Baptist Convention (Billingsley and Caldwell, Reference Billingsley and Caldwell1991). Starting during the period of enslavement, Black people established separate places of worship to escape the discrimination they faced, including segregated seating, restricted worship times, and the exclusion of Black people from serving as ministers (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994). Since their inception, these faith-based institutions have played a crucial role in Black philanthropy, providing educational programs for children and youth, food and basic necessities for the indigent, and other services that were often inaccessible to Black community members in the broader society (Billingsley and Caldwell, Reference Billingsley and Caldwell1991).

The creation of the earliest Black churches highlighted the deep connections between faith-based institutions and the Black associations that preceded them. Just after founding the Free African Society in 1786, Richard Allen went on to lead the creation of the AME Church, the first independent Black church organization in the United States (Carson Reference Carson1993). He created the AME church in 1787 because of the exclusion and opposition he encountered from the White-led Methodist church (Hall-Russell Reference Hall-Russell, Rooney and Sherman2005). In the North, Du Bois (Reference Du Bois1994), recounting preacher Alexander Crummell’s life journey, revealed the discrimination that Black members of the clergy faced from some church leaders who proclaimed, “no Negro priest [could] sit in [the] church convention, and no Negro church” could be permitted full representation and recognition in the organizational structure (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994, p. 137). Black churches, then, created an oppositional place for Black people to lead and worship without these exclusions while simultaneously serving as a community fund for charitable causes. Carson (Reference Carson, Rooney and Sherman2005) showed that “[i]n many ways, the black church was the first community foundation, aggregating the community’s resources across class lines and directing the resources to provide the services and institutions that were needed” (p. 7). This was true for Black people not only in the 1700s but also during later periods. For example, during the Great Migration of the twentieth century, the church would serve as an important resource for the newly transitioned Black population now occupying urban centers in the North (Spence Reference Spence2015). Just a few decades after this great migratory period, the church would serve as a rallying place—for both human advocacy and fundraising—during the Civil Rights Movement (Carson Reference Carson1993).

The Black church’s ability to serve as a coordinating venue and a fundraising apparatus proved essential in its early history, and Black women were instrumental in the growth of the Black church, although they were largely barred from leadership. Anne Firor Scott (Reference Scott1990) described Black women’s coordinated philanthropic efforts, including carrying “the welfare responsibilities for their congregations” and “gathering resources to build [a] network of churches” (p. 8) that would provide a foundation for future Black organizing, advocacy, and schooling in these important oppositional sites.

The Negro Convention Movement of the nineteenth century was similarly anchored in the Black church. Denise Burgher (Reference Burgher2019) observed that, while “not religious in content or intent” (p. 258), the movement did stand “as a secular adjunct of the black church, an extension into a broader public space of the black religious impulse of self-reliance and social uplift” (Burgher Reference Burgher2019, p. 258, as cited in Glaude Reference Glaude2000). This embeddedness between the conventions and the church was due to the locations where the conventions took place, which were often Black churches in the North. For example, my exploration into the archives of the Negro Convention Movement revealed that the first convention, held in 1830, took place at Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia (Colored Conventions Project 2021); Richard Allen was a speaker during this initial meeting. Key figures in the Black political tradition, including Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany, spoke at these conventions (Gliozzo Reference Gliozzo1972), signaling the important role the conventions held as an oppositional space for Black visioning for transformation.

During these conventions, Black people debated the conditions the community confronted and the possibilities for eradicating those conditions, while also expressing their vision of what philanthropy meant to them, given the existence of slavery in the South and near-slave-like conditions in the North (Delany Reference Delany2004). In this counterpublic (Dawson Reference Dawson2001), Black people articulated “the character of a truly philanthropic spirit,” one not built on a prejudice against their rights as humans and citizens, but one constructed on embracing the promises of liberty, providing access to “enlightened education,” and eradicating the “degraded condition…of our brethren in these United States” (Colored Conventions Project 2021). The themes shared in the convenings held in the Black church helped to shape and define the philanthropic pursuits of Black people in other spaces throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. In the following section, I examine the Black Towns Movement of the nineteenth century, highlighting once again the integral role Black churches played philanthropically in this significant chapter of Black history.

Philanthropy and the Black Towns Movement

As the nineteenth century advanced, Black people found the promises of emancipation and the progress that began during the post-emancipation era to be short-lived. While significant movement occurred to realize full citizenship for Black people with the ratification of the Thirteenth (abolishing slavery), Fourteenth (granting citizenship), and Fifteenth (providing access to the right to vote to men) Amendments (Kernell et al., Reference Kernell, Jacobson, Kousser and Vavreck2020), protection of these new rights for Black people was variable. During and after the passage of these constitutional amendments, several state legislatures enacted black codes which further restricted Black people’s right to vote, buy and own land, and serve on juries or testify against White people in court (Kernell et al., Reference Kernell, Jacobson, Kousser and Vavreck2020). Life for Black people changed significantly. With the withdrawal of federal forces after the 1876 election and with Southern Whites again emboldened to restrict Black freedom, Black people faced renewed violence, oppression, and domination. Ida B. Wells reported that the Knights of White Liners and the Ku Klux Klan, both White terrorist organizations, gained new prominence and terrorized Black communities to suppress Black racial progress. Writing on the effect of the Compromise of 1877 and the rise of racial violence perpetrated by many White Southerners, Wells (Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014) argued:

The deterioration of Black people’s rights and civic identity in the public sphere was met with a violence that devastated Black life. Lynchings and other forms of mob violence caused many Black people to live in fear for their lives and livelihoods. In the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century alone, Wells (Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014) estimated that more than 2000 people were shot, hanged, or burned alive at the hands of local White Southerners. Government officials and mobsters—sometimes one and the same—decided that Black lives did not matter and, therefore, their claims to citizenship and protection under the law could be rejected to ensure the country’s reunification and survival.

Despite these conditions, Black people continued to work for freedom and liberation in the face of deadly mob rule. One remedy included a critical detailing of the events and realities Black people confronted in places where mob rule had taken root. Another remedy required migration out of southern and midwestern states into locations that offered greater possibilities for Black freedom. Both strategies relied on Black philanthropists. For example, as a journalist, Wells required financial support to create, sustain, and promote literature campaigns that were generated to tell the truth about the “southern horrors.” In her essay, “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases,” Wells (Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014) thanked Black philanthropists from New York whose financial contributions made her work possible. Victoria Earle Matthews and Maritcha Lyons of Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, were members of the Black social elite of the city whose “race love, earnest zeal and unselfish effort” (Wells Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014, p. 59) made the publication detailing the lynchings possible (Johnson Reference Johnson2018). These Black women were key donors to Wells’s anti-lynching crusade and embodied the spirit of philanthropy during this era.

Wells’ philosophy of opposing and ending lynch law was expressed through the mechanism of her newspaper, The Free Speech, and other writings. In addition, Wells advocated for a strategic exit from places that imposed conditions on Black people similar to the bondage experienced during slavery. Although Black individuals were legally free under the Thirteenth Amendment, the reality of life in the South during this period was that their relationships with White people and the political power structure often mirrored those experienced during the era of enslavement. On exit, in one essay, Wells (Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014) wrote, “The Free Speech advised the people of Memphis that if they could do nothing else, after the atrocious lynching there, they could save their money and get away from a city whose laws afforded no protection to a black man” (Wells Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014, p. 91). One reading of this call to “get away” came in the form of boycotts and protests that compromised the financial interests of White business owners. Another reading, however, required a consideration of a more permanent exit from home communities. Wells argued that “a people who have the desire to be something,” when faced with the realities of southern lawlessness, “must be led to go out in the boundless west where they will develop the manhood which lies dormant with nothing to call it into exercise” (Wells Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014, p. 92). In another essay, following the lynching of prominent grocers near Memphis, Wells (Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014) cited a daily newspaper in the area, that noted that the final words of one of the victims, Tom Moss, as he pled for his life and the lives of the two other men with him, was, “‘If you will kill us, turn our faces to the West’” (Wells Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014, p. 101). Wells continued:

As a result, hundreds of people walked from Memphis toward Oklahoma or Kansas. To fund the effort to move West, some Black ministers sold their churches and, together with their parishioners, used these philanthropic funds to settle in other parts of the American West (Wells Reference Wells, Bay and Gates2014). The impetus for these acts of philanthropy, given for the purpose of emigration, was to escape the political environment that rendered their lives worthless.

Undoubtedly, Moss and Wells would have been aware of the movement of Black people to create all-Black towns in the western territory in places like Oklahoma and Kansas. Slocum (Reference Slocum2017) explained that, after southeastern American Indians were forcibly removed from their lands and placed into Indian Territory in the nineteenth century following the Civil War, the federal government divided these tribal lands and distributed allotments for homesteading and settlement.Footnote ⁶ From this arrangement, Black people formerly enslaved by American Indians (“freedmen”) and freed people from the South like the ones Wells described sought property in the West that would protect them from the “racial hostilities” they encountered in the Jim Crow South (Slocum Reference Slocum2017, p. 62). While Paul Cuffe, a Black advocate from Massachusetts, provided $4,000 dollars to send Black people in America to Sierra Leone in 1815, and although advocates at the Negro Convention Movement had advanced Canada as a prospective site for Black emigration in the early parts of its history, the Great Negro Exodus of 1879–1880 was a movement of its own (Tolson Reference Tolson1970). Several leaders of the all-Black town movement aspired to achieve an all-Black state, one that was “owned and governed by blacks” (Tolson Reference Tolson1970, p. 20). In 1879, more than 7000 Black people migrated to Kansas in search of a new opportunity to attain freedom in labor, land ownership, and political rights.

The task to move Black people into Black towns was supported by Black philanthropists. Newspapers advertised Black towns and put out calls for Black people throughout the South, encouraging them to make the journey (Bittle and Geis, Reference Bittle and Geis1957). While a large portion of Black people who made the voyage were farmers, members of the Black middle class and professionals also made the trek. Regardless of their station in life at the time, a network of Black philanthropists was positioned to provide assistance both during the journey and in the early weeks and months following Black people’s arrival in the new settlements. Black churches, such as the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, provided an in-kind donation of a shelter for migrants making the journey to the West (Freeman Reference Freeman2020). Black people sent donations of “food and money” to Black churches to help facilitate the migration (Freeman Reference Freeman2020, p. 35). Additionally, an investigation by The New York Times (1891) revealed the extent to which Black people were supported by Black philanthropists. In 1891, the newspaper wrote, “Many have gone to that territory with nothing except the rags they wore, but they have never become public charges. They have been cared for by persons of their own race until they were in such condition that they could help themselves and help others” (The New York Times 1891, p. 9). Those in need of care and sustenance were “fed by their more fortunate brothers,” according to the Times, until they were granted land and able to make their own provisions. One philanthropist noted in this article, “Many poor people have come here with nothing. How they have lived I hardly know. I have done all I could to help the people of my own race, two families now living on my place down there by the creek” (The New York Times 1891, p. 9). Black philanthropists united together and provided mutual aid to one another in the form of financial and in-kind contributions in an effort to secure the promises of land ownership and economic growth, as well as to be granted a reprieve from the hostilities they faced from White racists in other parts of the country.

In another example of Black philanthropy during this time, some leaders in the all-Black town development effort in Oklahoma warned Black people in the South about the difficulties of life in the new territory, while many waited for land allotments to be processed. One publication, the Herald Newspaper, told prospective farmers: “‘DON’T COME TO THIS COUNTRY UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO SUPPORT YOURSELF AND FAMILY UNTIL SUCH TIME AS YOU CAN RAISE A CROP’” (Littlefield and Underhill, Reference Littlefield and Underhill1973, p. 353, capitalization included in original text). Despite these warnings, Black people searching for refuge from the horrors of southern life embarked on the move toward all-Black towns.

In Kansas, for example, between 1873 and 1874, hundreds of Black people migrated from southern states like Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. By 1879, this number had grown significantly, and among the “Exodusters” were “a flood of unorganized, destitute and leaderless Negroes not knowing whither they were bound except to Kansas” (Garvin Reference Garvin1948, p. 10). According to Roy Garvin (Reference Garvin1948), Benjamin Pap Singleton, a former enslaved man, along with fellow Black-town promoter E. P. McCabe, activated their grassroots philanthropy to aid their fellow Black countrymen and women. “Being interested in the welfare of these unfortunate migrants,” Garvin reported, “he [Singleton] along with McCabe in 1879, brought a carload of food and clothing and a certified check for $2,000 to Governor St. John at Topeka for the relief of the refugees” (Garvin Reference Garvin1948, p. 19). Black people were determined to provide mutual aid to their suffering counterparts. While government agencies and other societal organizations provided some resources for the new arrivals, there was resistance from White officials and constituents, requiring the added aid of Black people themselves. The goal was to create Black societies that were separate and apart from White surveillance and control. In these towns, Black people would shape their own collective destinies, those that were constructed with positive racial identities and aspirations for racial advancement.

Many Black towns did not achieve the success envisioned by the migrants. The prejudice and racism against them from White people would not allow thriving Black communities in large numbers and certainly no all-Black state, as was McCabe’s hope for Oklahoma. Arthur L. Tolson (Reference Tolson1970) reported that opposition through intense White racism during this period emerged because White planters and the ruling class needed to keep Black people in economically exploitable positions. While farmers flocked to the Black towns in hopes of securing land, growing commercial crops (cotton), and providing for their own needs, they were also joined by Black people of the professional class such as doctors, lawyers, and office-seekers. A New York Times report (1891) noted that “the opposition to the Negroes in the territory is principally political” (p. 9). Daniel F. Littlefield and Lonnie E. Underhill (1973) wrote that towns like Liberty and Lincoln—both in Oklahoma—“were drawing the better-educated and monied blacks as well as those professionally trained, who fostered the dream of becoming a political power and extinguishing racial prejudice” (p. 354). Often, these Black towns would be located inside larger counties where the Black community would be surrounded by White towns that held contrasting views of Black possibility. In these settings, White residents used their power to surveil Black towns as they grew and to disrupt efforts by Black residents and philanthropists to increase their influence when such influence conflicted with White aims. In one instance, when Black citizens engaged in the democratic process and showed their strength in numbers—thus demonstrating their potential to be the deciding voting bloc in one Oklahoma county—White residents conceded that “[d]isenfranchisement of the Negroes was agreed upon as the only solution to the white dilemma” (Bittle and Geis, Reference Bittle and Geis1957, p. 256). After one electionFootnote ⁷ where Black Republicans shared an electoral victory with White Republicans, county election officials “refused to certify the returns from the predominantly Negro precincts, and the Democrats were declared officially elected” (Bittle and Geis, Reference Bittle and Geis1957, p. 257). Dreams of freedom from political exclusion were shattered.

Black philanthropists were not deterred by the exclusion they faced, continuing their efforts to make an impact despite significant barriers. In the next section, I examine the efforts of Black women and the networks of clubs they established to organize their philanthropic practices toward the end of the century. These clubs highlight the crucial role Black women played in philanthropy, both locally and nationally.

Black Women and Early Twentieth Century Philanthropy

The end of the nineteenth century brought about incredible expansions in wealth for America’s industrial class (Zunz Reference Zunz2012). Olivier Zunz (Reference Zunz2012) reported that in 1870, there were only one hundred millionaires in the United States, but by the early 1890s, that number had risen to more than 4000. Among the growing number of millionaires and billionaires were philanthropists focused on addressing structural solutions to society’s problems, rather than simply allocating charity to the poor (Zunz Reference Zunz2012). In the Black public sphere, advocates—including Black philanthropists—renewed their efforts to challenge and disrupt the various forms of racial separation and segregation. The central question, as expressed by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903, was the question of the color line (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994). As industrialization swept the country and as opportunities for social mobilization bypassed Black, working-class, and poor communities, members of the Black community challenged the unrelenting role of race in creating lines of social, economic, and political separation. In the early 1890s, for example, Black women and activists in cities like New York continued the struggle against racial segregation in the educational system. As Val Marie Johnson (Reference Johnson2018) wrote, “the phrase [the color line] referred to Blacks’ struggles for, and Whites’ resistance to, common schools” (p. 842) for Black children. Du Bois, writing after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision that nationalized the “separate but equal” doctrine already practiced in many parts of the country (Kernell et al., Reference Kernell, Jacobson, Kousser and Vavreck2020), expanded the framing of the color line to account for racialized inequality due to segregation, economic exploitation, political oppression, and separation in religious settings (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994; D. Jagmohan, personal communication, October 1, 2020). The context created conditions in which those Black people with financial assets gained new privileges and created organizations, while others continued to suffer due to lack of access. The ongoing assault on the Black community’s economic and political advancement required strategy development among Black people on how to respond both politically and philanthropically to meet the needs of Black people who suffered from poverty, conditions that too closely mirrored their status under slavery (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994). Indeed, although slavery had been abolished, the vestiges of that peculiar institution persisted for Black people in all parts of the country.

From this context emerged an elite class of Black women who coordinated locally to create Black Women’s Clubs and, in doing so, continued the decades-old practice of Black women embodying a philanthropic spirit in service to themselves and the broader Black community. Gerda Lerner (Reference Lerner1974) described the club efforts as starting at the local level before moving to more national venues. Mary Church Terrell (Reference Terrell1940), however, noted that among the first local club organizations created in Washington, these early associations had the dual aim of creating regional clubs that would be coordinated by a national governing body. At the local level, club missions included the intention “to undertake educational, philanthropic and welfare activities” (Lerner Reference Lerner1974, p. 158) and “to rise above ignorance and degradation” (Terrell Reference Terrell1940, p. 1). A review of several characteristics revealed important elements of the club women and their philanthropy.

First, women in club organizations often represented women of elite status and social standing, and efforts were taken in many clubs to restrict membership to similarly positioned, educated women. Second, in some instances, association records demonstrated that club women reflected “a patronizing, missionary attitude in dealing with the poor” (Lerner Reference Lerner1974, p. 160), a framework designed to assist younger women with achieving upward mobility. Speaking on the impact of the clubs on younger women beneficiaries, Terrell (Reference Terrell1940), citing an article she authored and published in 1893, wrote that if club women should “gather under their wing as many young women as possible…where minds should be enlightened, whose fingers trained and whose sentiments elevated by personal contact with cultured, refined women, the race problem would be on the high road to solution” (Terrell Reference Terrell1940, p. 4). Club women sought to achieve this enlightenment through their philanthropy by giving lessons on childcare, home economics, gardening, and kindergarten care, as well as orchestrating literary discussions along with other service and program offerings (Lerner Reference Lerner1974). Third, women donated their time and talents in support of a club’s mission. In a night school, for example, “teachers…volunteered their services gratuitously,” covering topics on literature, language, and other subjects (Terrell Reference Terrell1940, p. 5). In addition, some clubs, like the Colored Women’s League of Washington, D.C., created a training center for teachers and offered several free kindergartens and day nurseries.Footnote ⁸ Other clubs, like some in Illinois and Minnesota, clothed the poor and gave food baskets to poor community members on holidays like Easter and Thanksgiving (Shaw Reference Shaw1991).

Fourth, these offerings were defiantly ideological. With Ida B. Wells’s anti-lynching crusade well underway, Black club women (like Victoria Earle Matthews and Maritcha Lyons discussed above) saw the significance of supporting Wells’s movement and, simultaneously, providing protection for community members. With Wells in mind, clubs were orchestrated with ideological currents as guiding posts: “a defense of Black womanhood as part of a defense of the race from terror and abuse” (Lerner Reference Lerner1974, p. 160) was one ideological frame guiding the work. One club in Atlanta declared its aims to be “the ‘moral, economic, and social advancement of Negroes’ in Atlanta” (Lerner Reference Lerner1974, p. 163). Black women clubs, through their membership, philanthropic aims, and ideologies, understood the importance of developing a strong group consciousness that rejected racist notions of Black womanhood and, instead, focused on Black political and economic progress.

The national organizing arm, the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), founded in 1896, united over one hundred local women’s clubs and two smaller national organizations that were previously founded in 1895. Predating the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) by almost fifteen years, one scholar argued that the NACW was “the country’s leading national race organization” (Shaw Reference Shaw1991, p. 19). Given its significance in Black life, particularly among Black elites, Black women’s clubs built on centuries-old philanthropic practices that emphasized mutual aid and racial pride. Local organizations like the Women’s Loyal Union in New York City—founded by women who provided financial support for Wells’s work in Southern Horrors—along with Mary Margaret Washington who, serving as director of Girls Industries at Tuskegee, created the first Women’s Club at Tuskegee Institute in 1895, joined Ida B. Wells who founded the Ida B. Wells Club in Chicago. Like the mutual aid associations preceding them that experienced race- and gender-based exclusion from other organizations in society, Black women’s clubs operated their separate organizations and, therefore, sustained alternative views of Black racial progress (Dawson Reference Dawson2001; Shaw Reference Shaw1991). These beliefs stood in opposition to the racist views laid upon them by members of the dominant group and would serve as a blueprint for Black philanthropic activities well into the twentieth century and beyond.

The discriminatory environment of Jim Crow imposed significant constraints on the aspirations of Black women. However, Black individuals did find opportunities for racial advancement across various sectors of society, including the business sector. Indeed, as Tyrone M. Freeman (Reference Freeman2020) noted, the number of Black businesses grew from 25,000 in 1903 to well over 40,000 in 1913. Many Black entrepreneurs of the twentieth century used the increased access to capital accumulation to give philanthropically. Perhaps the most notable Black entrepreneur and businesswoman of this era was Madam C. J. Walker, creator of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. There is ample evidence of the extent to which Walker gave during her lifetime. Using historical and archival methods, Freeman (Reference Freeman2020) examined Walker’s public speeches, private correspondence, newspaper reports, and official documents from her beauty company, to show her philanthropic efforts at the turn of the century. Using a cultural and identity-based approach that emphasized Black women and communities, Walker gave to churches, YMCAs, orphanages, elderly care centers, and grocery baskets for families in need. Walker made other in-kind gifts, including paying attorney fees for relatives (Freeman Reference Freeman2020).

In education, Madam C. J. Walker drew inspiration from Booker T. Washington, famed education leader who promoted the Hampton-Tuskegee model of industrial education (Anderson Reference Anderson1988; Washington Reference Washington1995). According to Dawson (Reference Dawson2001), Washington’s model emphasized “industrial, mechanical, vocational, and primarily agricultural pursuits through which one could prove both individually and as a race that blacks were fit to join a nation of citizen-producers” (Dawson Reference Dawson2001, pp. 283–284). The emphasis was on educational initiatives that would prepare Black individuals to be producers in an economy dominated by Whites in the North and South who were antagonistic toward Black racial progress (Anderson Reference Anderson1978). Walker embraced this ideological current by giving to Tuskegee Institute, Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls, and other institutes (Freeman Reference Freeman2020). As incremental shifts in the economy made it possible for Black women like Walker to achieve financial success, she used her wealth to support Black people in myriad ways. But Walker understood that achieving economic success worked in tandem with ensuring that conditions for economic growth were possible throughout the country. Thus, Walker also gave to the NAACP, including the Legal Defense Fund, and in 1919, donated $1,000 dollars to the NAACP’s national conference on lynching (Freeman Reference Freeman2020). Economic success meant little if Black people were not safe to live in their communities.

The investments from Madam Walker (and other ordinary Black people organized in chapters throughout the country) to the NAACP provided critical financial capital and allowed the NAACP to pursue its goals (Freeman Reference Freeman2020; Walker Reference Walker2018). Importantly, funding from White donors, such as the Garland Fund, often came with constraints that influenced the NAACP’s activities, with outside donors directing how the organization operated. Megan Ming Francis (Reference Francis2019) framed these constraints as “movement capture” wherein White-led philanthropic organizations like the Garland Fund used their resources to redirect the NAACP’s racial violence efforts toward more palatable advocacy efforts like education (Francis Reference Francis2019, p. 276). While White philanthropy remained a significant funding source for the NAACP, Black philanthropy became crucial for ensuring the organization’s sustainability and independence. This discussion will now be explored further in the section below.

Black Philanthropy During the Depression, and Funding Civil Rights

The Great Depression that began in 1929 demonstrated the state of precarity that dominated the lives of Black Americans. Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to remedy the economic precarity that befell Americans, many Black people and other people of color were “functionally excluded” (Flynn et al., Reference Flynn, Holmberg, Warren and Wong2017, p. 23) from several components of the New Deal Era policies designed to support Americans through this calamity. The Social Security Act, new labor laws, access to homeownership, and the G. I. Bill were policies from which Black people were not able to benefit when first enacted (Flynn et al., Reference Flynn, Holmberg, Warren and Wong2017). The economic exploitation faced by Black people, particularly in the South (Haywood Reference Haywood1948), was buttressed by systematic exclusion from political spheres during the Jim Crow era. The result of the anti-Black racism in public policy would mean generations of economic and political inequality.

Black churches and their parishioners often filled the gaps left by government-imposed inequality and inequitable access to critical relief resources. During the 1920s and 1930s, Black church congregations contributed to relief efforts for the poor, provided food for the unemployed, and supported kindergartens and childcare centers (Billingsley and Caldwell, Reference Billingsley and Caldwell1991). In the 1930s, Mount Calvary Holy Church in New York City opened job training centers to help community members acquire work (Trulear Reference Trulear and Jackson2009). Donations made in churches enabled Black people of all income levels to participate philanthropically.

Beyond the pulpit, two important philanthropic organizations emerged in this context. The first was Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated, founded in 1938. The lead organizer was Marion Thomas, a Black mother living in Philadelphia (Barnes Reference Barnes1979). Jack and Jill was a membership-based organization primarily for Black women. Over time, the goal of Jack and Jill was to provide an organization where parents could “protect [their] children from discrimination and demonstrate [the organization’s] concern for the handicapped, various civil rights victories in the Congress, the courts, and in the streets” (Barnes Reference Barnes1979, p. 266). Participants worked at the local, state, and national levels to make financial contributions to organizations and causes of interest. This included the contributions of “memorial gifts, bequests, and individual gifts to charities” to organizations like Mental Health for Children, Research for Rheumatic Fever, and the NAACP Legal Fund (Barnes Reference Barnes1979, p. 266). The Jack and Jill of America Foundation worked with colleges like Howard University to provide Black, Mexican American, and American Indian students with instruction in “a variety of topics and activities related to personal growth and development, including self-analysis, biographical film-making, sensitivity and self-concept, and the development of an improved personal communication system” at a cost of about $85,000 dollars (Barnes Reference Barnes1979, p. 266). Furthermore, Jack and Jill leaders donated more than $20,000 dollars between 1968 and 1970 to Pittsburgh to develop “learning techniques” for preschool boys and girls in disadvantaged communities (Barnes Reference Barnes1979, p. 266). Jack and Jill continued the legacy of the Black women’s club movement by providing mostly middle-class families with venues to help children and youth “adapt in a segregated society” (Barnes Reference Barnes1979, p. 269).

A second philanthropic and service organization developed following Jack and Jill. In the 1940s, Black elite women, led by Margaret Roselle Hawkins and Sarah Strickland Scott, joined forces with other women in Philadelphia to create The Links, Incorporated. Born out of a need to provide additional support and services to low-income Black children and youth, women in The Links used their social and financial capital to contribute resources toward various causes, including education, policy advocacy, and civil rights for African Americans nationwide (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008). Founded on November 9, 1946, women in The Links advocated for Black people to be employed in the federal government, supported antilynching legislation, and worked to support the NAACP’s desegregation efforts. The Links’s involvement with the NAACP was ironclad; in 1957, women in The Links donated almost $30,000 dollars to advance the NAACP’s legal challenges to segregation in the court system (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008). The various chapters of The Links organization worked philanthropically at the community-level to donate books, pay transportation costs for children with disabilities, build nurseries, and provide educational and cultural programming to disadvantaged children and youth through chapter affiliates (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008). These women of elite background paid substantial membership fees that funded the larger organization. Drawing on Du Bois’s (Reference Du Bois1994) notion of a “talented tenth” (Du Bois Reference Du Bois1994, p. 65), Black women in The Links believed that their successes and accomplishments could be harnessed to uplift the broadest elements of the race, many of whom confronted the harshest realities of racism, discrimination, and anti-Black violence (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008).

Membership in both Jack and Jill and The Links sometimes overlapped, as it did with several other associations serving Black people of status. These organizations included Black Greek Letter Organizations, which emerged beginning in the early years of the twentieth century. Both organizations were also accused of maintaining exclusive memberships of elite Black families (Barnes Reference Barnes1979; Sanders-McMurtry and Woods, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008); Jack and Jill was accused outright of serving “lighter-skinned families” to help them adapt into White, mainstream society (Poe Reference Poe1992). One primary distinction between the two organizations was that Jack and Jill’s goal was “to foster the cultural and educational growth of middle-class Black children” (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008, p. 182), while the primary audience for The Links was low-income children and youth. This revealed the truth about racism’s impact for Black people across the economic spectrum: “the structure and tenacity of racism in America were so strong that the bonds between the two classes would never be broken” (Sanders-McMurtry and Woods Haydel, Reference Sanders-McMurtry, Haydel, Knupfer and Woyshner2008, p. 183). Through organizations like The Links, Jack and Jill, and other social and service groups, Black women used parallel structures to invest their capital in uplifting Black communities, guided by an ideology of linked fate and racial advancement (Dawson Reference Dawson2001).

As the mid-century emerged, the politically motivated philanthropic investments of Madam C. J. Walker, the women’s clubs, women’s groups, churches, and other organizations were gaining momentum. In the decades leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP’s membership grew “nearly ten times, to a half million” (Sitkoff Reference Sitkoff1993, p. 11), even as groups like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) initiated nonviolent direct actions. Beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP’s legal crusade secured early victories that set the stage for broader legal and grassroots movements later in the century. Although funding from Walker and the women’s groups discussed above were helpful, more would be needed to fight against Plessy’s separate-but-equal doctrine that dominated the country. The church would again become an instrumental force, concentrating the philanthropic resources of Black people throughout the South in support of the movement’s aims.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s 2021 documentary on the history of the church, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, revealed how instrumental the church was in garnering financial support for civil rights (Bryson et al., Reference Bryson, Burke, Fall, Gardner, Gates, Harris, Holman, Jackson, Legend, McGhee, Porfido, Stiklorius, Wilson and Yacyshyn2021). Not only were everyday parishioners key to funding the movement, but organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) traveled the country with “The Freedom Singers” to raise money for SNCC’s civil rights organizing. Notable singers like Mahalia Jackson would aid the movement by giving concerts that raised thousands of dollars to fund the Freedom Rides and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s travels. SNCC’s individual fundraising efforts were crucial in supporting the organization’s operations, especially as it faced growing challenges in securing the capital necessary to sustain the movement. In the broader funding ecosystem, organizations viewed as more moderate—including the National Urban League and the Legal Defense and Education Fund—received a considerably greater share of funding from several White corporations and foundations, compared to those organizations like SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) that were viewed as more radical (Haines Reference Haines1984). Importantly, donations from ordinary Black people provided critical funding for advocacy efforts, and the collective philanthropy of Black communities was essential for civil rights organizations to achieve their goals. In addition to elite donors, ordinary Black people were actively solicited to contribute their philanthropic gifts to support the movement’s various activities. For example, offerings made by parishioners in Black churches (across denominations) served as a key “source of financial assistance” (Sitkoff Reference Sitkoff1993, p. 57) for the struggle for equality. Church buildings themselves were in-kind philanthropic contributions, serving as staging locations and venues for public speeches by movement leaders, many of whom were ministers.

The utility of Black churches also revealed the role of Black women in the movement. Black women, who were restricted from some leadership positions in both minister-led and secular civil rights organizations, were key fundraisers, volunteering to solicit funds as telephone operators and campus travelers (Robnett Reference Robnett1996). Organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), founded in 1957 by Black ministers and local leaders (Sitkoff Reference Sitkoff1993), used the resources raised by women and other volunteers to provide “food and clothing to those in need” (Robnett Reference Robnett1996, p. 1681). Political mobilization was a core element of the civil rights organizations, but giving philanthropically to meet basic needs of community members remained of great importance, too.

In the final two sections, I explore the ongoing role of the Black church, the rise of Black philanthropic foundations, and other philanthropic mechanisms that engage broad segments of the Black population in the post-civil rights era. These examples highlight that multiple forms of philanthropy continue to be a central trait of Black giving.

Post-Civil Rights and Black Philanthropists Operating Today

Following the Civil Rights Movement, Black people continued to grow organizationally and institutionally. In the post-civil rights era, the growth of Black philanthropic organizations occurred alongside broader shifts in the economic and political landscape. As conservatives pushed for a free-market economic approach to reduce government intervention, government resources began to tighten (Frumkin Reference Frumkin2002; Soskis Reference Soskis, Powell and Bromley2020; Zunz Reference Zunz2012). The emerging consensus enabled the broader nonprofit sector to expand under calls for people to take individual responsibility for their lives (Eikenberry Reference Eikenberry2007). In Black communities, newer philanthropic organizations emerged in this period, but the relevance of the Black church as a community institution persisted.

Black churches (broadly defined) remain an additional source of philanthropic activity for Black people nationwide. Today, Black Americans maintain “high levels of religious commitment” (Mohamed Reference Mohamed2021), and about sixty percent of Black Americans who go to church attend churches where a majority of the congregants and clergy are Black (Mohamed et al., Reference Mohamed, Cox, Diamant and Gecewicz2021), according to the most recent estimates from the Pew Research Center.Footnote ⁹ In congregations, “fish fries, cake walks, and ice cream socials,” along with dedicated budget allocations for giving to the less fortunate, are hallmarks of philanthropic activity (Jones and Watson, Reference Jones and Watson2018). These efforts are coupled with scholarship funds and basic need provisions like food pantries (Jones and Watson, Reference Jones and Watson2018). Churches convey to parishioners that philanthropy is not solely a financial endeavor but can take many different forms (Drezner Reference Drezner2013). Despite its important role in Black culture, the nature of this religious commitment is changing. The Pew report showed that young Black adults were less likely to attend church, and when they did, they were less likely to attend predominantly Black congregations (Mohamed et al., Reference Mohamed, Cox, Diamant and Gecewicz2021). These findings aligned with Carson’s (Reference Carson, Rooney and Sherman2005) reporting nearly two decades ago, which observed that regular church attendance in Black communities was declining from nearly 40% in 1970 to 25% in 2002. While these trends do not compromise the church’s significance in Black philanthropy, it may require us to rethink its role in the years to come.

In addition to Black churches, philanthropic foundations are increasingly being used to coordinate and centralize Black giving. For example, in 1981, Black citizens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, created the POISE Community Foundation (POISE). Led by Mr. Bernard H. Jones, a native of the Pittsburgh region, and his associates, POISE grew from a youth-serving organization in the 1950s and 1960s into an investment organization and, ultimately, to a public charitable foundation (mostly) serving the Black community in Allegheny County (POISE Foundation 2023; Witowski and Burlingame, Reference Witowski, Burlingame and Buechel2021). POISE sources its revenue from a variety of donors and directs those resources into program areas like arts and culture, youth education, urban affairs, and health. According to the foundation’s website, POISE (2023) has awarded “more than 15.5 million in grants and scholarships to deserving organizations and families in the Pittsburgh area and throughout the United States” (POISE Foundation 2023). This Black-led and Black-serving foundation is one of many philanthropic organizations operating in the United States today. Its design as a Black-led, Black-serving organization is noteworthy, given earlier predictions that the “diminished racial discrimination in America [had] released African Americans from the burden of having their philanthropy be race focused” (Carson Reference Carson, Rooney and Sherman2005, p. 9). While not every Black-created foundation is Black-serving (or led by Black people), the murders of Breonna Taylor (Oppel et al., Reference Oppel, Taylor and Bogel-Burrough2024) and Ahmaud Arbery (Fausset Reference Fausset2022)—to name a couple—at the hands of police and vigilantes, respectively, alongside persistent racial inequality in multiple arenas of public life (Flynn et al., Reference Flynn, Holmberg, Warren and Wong2017), suggest that an explicit focus on Black communities and Black nonprofit leaders working to solve these issues may still be of relevance (POISE Foundation 2023).

Table 1 provides selected examples of Black-created philanthropic foundations operating in 2023. While not representative of all Black philanthropic foundations,Footnote ¹⁰ the examples do show the diversity of organizational type and ideological orientation toward race-based giving. Two of the foundations were founded by Black people who have become billionaires—a far journey from Harriet Jacobs and her grandmother. Total asset values across the foundations range from four million dollars to $245 million dollars. Entertainers are represented, including the Eat Learn Play Foundation (ELPF) created by athlete Stephen Curry and his wife, entrepreneur Ayesha Curry, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s Charitable Foundation (OWCF). These foundations join private equity businessman Robert F. Smith’s Fund II Foundation and another community foundation, the Minnesota Black Collective Foundation (MBCF). Program areas and grantees are diverse across the foundations, but education remains a key sector of focus for Black philanthropists, building on centuries of investment in this area. Meeting basic needs is also a focus area for Black-created foundations. While three of the foundations mention an explicit focus on serving Black and African American communities, others, such as ELPF, are race-neutral and, instead, focus grantmaking in specific cities and neighborhoods where Black and other people of color may be concentrated. The diversity of issues, organizations, communities served, and resource capacities underscores the critical need to evaluate Black philanthropic efforts through both theoretical and empirical frameworks, grounded in the broader history of Black philanthropic giving. One potential avenue of inquiry could explore the extent to which these philanthropies recognize and embrace the traditional definitions and motivations of Black philanthropy. Future research could also examine their roles as beneficiaries of Black philanthropic ancestors, many of whom established oppositional institutions that challenged racism and discrimination, paving the way for today’s foundations.

Table 1.

Selected Black Philanthropic Foundations

Sources: Pro Publica’s Nonprofit Explorer 990 form Database, Foundation websites.

Empowering Communities: Giving Circles and Grassroots Giving

In addition to the community foundations listed in Table 1 (POISE and MBCF) and Black churches, giving circles are an important component of the philanthropic landscape, connecting Black philanthropists at the local level. Giving circles operate as both formal and informal entities and allow participants to pool their resources and decide in concert where raised funds will be distributed (Day and Samuel, Reference Day, Samuel and Jackson2009). It is most common for circles to identify a set amount that each member must contribute each year in order to participate, but some giving circles allow their members to donate their time. Carol Brunson Day and Judith Gordon Samuel (Reference Day, Samuel and Jackson2009) observed that women represent the largest share of giving circles—continuing a centuries-long tradition of Black women leadership in philanthropy—but they recognized that memberships are also diverse along ethnoracial, gender, and age lines. Organizations like the New Generation of African American Philanthropists (NGAAP) in Charlotte, North Carolina, led by Valaida Fullwood, and the Next Generation of African American Philanthropists in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded by Darryl Lester and Athan Lindsay, are two examples of Black giving circles (NGAAP 2025). According to Freeman (Reference Freeman2020), Black giving circles “are reminiscent of the resource-pooling…of…clubwomen, fraternal women…” (Freeman Reference Freeman2020, p. 207) and other Black philanthropists who were committed to deploying the spirit of giving and self-help innate in Black communities.

Additional mechanisms for generating (and celebrating) Black philanthropy exist. These additional tools enable broader segments of the Black population to engage in philanthropy, offering adaptable avenues for giving that reflect the diverse ways philanthropy can be practiced in the twenty-first century. In 2019, Jamye Wooton co-founded CLLCTIVLY, a social change organization operating in Baltimore, Maryland (CLLCTIVLY 2025). Sparked by the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, CLLCTIVLY aims “to create a decentralized network” of Black-led social change organizations that are “rooted in community, self-determination, joy, love, abundance, and reciprocity”; to date, it has organized more than three million dollars toward Black-serving organizations (CLLCTIVLY 2025). The organization appears to be guided by an ideological view that centers a Black-led, Black-serving approach to philanthropy. CLLCTIVLY exists in an ecosystem alongside emerging efforts to amplify the economic and political realities facing Black communities. Organizations like the Association of Black Foundation Executives promote the nationwide observance of “Black Philanthropy Month” within Black communities (Freeman Reference Freeman2020). Black Philanthropy Month is celebrated annually in August wherein Black people and allies are encouraged to honor the contributions Black individuals have made to social change. Also during Black Philanthropy Month, individuals and organizations are urged to donate to Black-led organizations throughout the month, particularly on August 28th, under the initiative Give 8/28 (Give 8/28 2025). This event “leverages online fundraising” to engage the modern generation of virtual Black philanthropists. Together, these giving circles, grassroots fundraising initiatives, and celebrations of Black philanthropy build upon the legacy of the first Black philanthropists in America, whose efforts laid the foundation for the spirit of philanthropy that endures today (Give 8/28 2025).