$5.00, a monthly fee of about 50
cents, and gave sick dues ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 a month, with
guarantee of payment of one's funeral expenses and subsequent help to
the widow. By 1838 there were in Philadelphia alone 100 such groups with
7,448 members. As bringing together spirits supposedly congenial, these
organizations largely took the place of clubs, and the meetings were
relished accordingly. Some drifted into secret societies, and after the
Civil War some that had not cultivated the idea of insurance were forced
to add this feature to their work.

In the sphere of civil rights the Negroes, in spite of circumstances,
were making progress, and that by their own efforts as well as those
of their friends the Abolitionists. Their papers helped decidedly. The
_Journal of Freedom_ (commonly known as _Freedom's Journal_), begun
March 30, 1827, ran for three years. It had numerous successors, but
no one of outstanding strength before the _North Star_ (later known as
_Frederick Douglass' Paper_) began publication in 1847, continuing
until the Civil War. Largely through the effort of Paul Cuffe for the
franchise, New Bedford, Mass., was generally prominent in all that made
for racial prosperity. Here even by 1850 the Negro voters held the
balance of power and accordingly exerted a potent influence on Election
day.[1] Under date March 6, 1840, there was brought up for repeal so
much of the Massachusetts Statutes as forbade intermarriage between
white persons and Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, as "contrary to the
principles of Christianity and republicanism." The committee said that
it did not recommend a repeal in the expectation that the number of
connections, legal or illegal, between the races would be thereupon
increased; but its object rather was that wherever such connections were
found the usual civil liabilities and obligations should not fail to
attach to the contracting parties. The enactment was repealed. In the
same state, by January, 1843, an act forbidding discrimination
on railroads was passed. This grew out of separate petitions or
remonstrances from Francis Jackson and Joseph Nunn, each man being
supported by friends, and the petitioners based their request "not on
the supposition that the colored man is not as well treated as his white
fellow-citizen, but on the broad principle that the constitution allows
no distinction in public privileges among the different classes of
citizens in this commonwealth