White backlash erased Black heroism during the 1793 Philadelphia epidemic

Evidence

Allen preached about the demonstration of Christian charity represented by these selfless acts. Nevertheless, when the virus subsided, Black contributions to the city’s survival during the epidemic were contested, erased, and denied, with one white printer going so far as to accuse the city’s Black nurses of extorting large fees from their patients and looting their houses. The slander against the city’s Black community was so great that Allen and Jones published a response, entitled A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793: And a Refutation of Some Censures Thrown upon Them in Some Late Publications. Their reputations prevailed, and in 1794, Allen was able to garner enough support to start the Bethel Church in an old blacksmith’s shop. That same year, Jones opened the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. Both churches had grown out of the Free African Society, the founding of which one A.M.E. pastor would later refer to as “a Liberty Bell for Black folks.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1029

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s reframing thesis: moments of Black self-organization (Free African Society) became foundation for institution-building even when contributions were contested — parallels later patterns of Black labor being erased. Also echoes the Wilentz dispute over whether 1619 is about contributions-erased.
• SEED: The 1793 yellow fever epidemic as a case study in how Black community aid was first sought, then repudiated — angle: gratitude withdrawal as a pattern in American race relations.
• QUESTION: Were the white printer’s accusations substantiated in any degree, or purely fabricated? How did Allen and Jones refute them concretely?