1793 YELLOW FEVER AND FREE AFRICAN SOCIETY

The most invaluable contribution of the “Free African Society” of Richard Allen, Absalom Jones and others, that is briefly mentioned here, in Wikipedia is often omitted from most American histories, as being too kind to the blacks and too cruel to the whites. And as being too revelatory of the deceit and credulity of the whites and the blacks, representatively, in our history. Yellow Fever was the worst viral plague, killing 5,000 of Philadelphia’s 50,000 whites, in American history. The purposeful historical omission of the blacks’ contributions is due to the betrayal of “equal rights” that were then promised to American blacks, by the national leaders, if they would risk their own lives, health, fortunes, to help to save the nation’s white founders, many of whom had fled the national capital with their families and slaves in tow. They asked the blacks, if they would also to help save Philadelphia’s remaining white leaders from the pernicious plague. The whites had presumed that the blacks were immune from Yellow Fever, because many of them were immune to malaria caused by mosquitoes; their inoculations in Africa, before being enslaved, by their own tribal doctors is what had made those who were inoculated, made them resistant, it was later learned. That Africans were descendants of medical sages came as an additional shock to “superior” whites. The Free African Society was the forerunner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that was incorporated in 1816, after lengthy litigation against the Methodist church. It was also the first home of the African Episcopal Church founded by Absalom Jones. .The blacks of Philadelphia were selfless and righteous , who greatly benefited Americans, even as hundreds died doing so. But whites reneged again on that promise to African Americans in 1793 till today. The Coronavirus viral plague of 2020 brought our earlier African American historical episodes to mind, to be mindful of, as we progress through this issue.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1793_Philadelphia_yellow_fever_epidemic?fbclid=IwAR0wf47ZuIDN84VQeEbqJLDsTK68iYXVFhEu259vGme2oXDIzz6E-PlITfo