In New Orleans in the 19th century, they had something like 224 black associations that did different things. They didn't have 224 black churches. What seems important to me is if you live in a certain neighborhood, you might belong to five associations overlapping your different interests in life. There's such an ability to mobilize all blacks in a city because of this plethora of organizations.
Featuring Thulani Davis on The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom, a monumental history of freedpeople organizing amid the Civl War and Reconstruction.
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Check out A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville haymarketbooks.org/books/1990-a-spectre-haunting