Black Philadelphians Nurse Yellow Fever Victims — Then Accused of Profiteering

During Philadelphia's 1793 yellow fever epidemic, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen organized the Black community to nurse the sick, bury the dead, and staff hospitals — at great personal risk. Prominent white journalist Mathew Carey then published a pamphlet accusing Black nurses of extorting patients. Jones and Allen responded with their own pamphlet, A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, refuting Carey's charges and documenting their