The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty & Pension Association (MRBPA) was founded in 1896 by two formerly enslaved people, Callie House, a widow and mother of five and Isaiah Dickerson, The membership held its first convention in Nashville, Tennessee in 1898. MRBPA was attacked by politicians and investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Post Office for mail fraud.
Miranda Booker Perry’s article “No Pensions for Ex-Slaves: How Federal Agencies Suppressed Movement to Aid Freedpeople” published in Prologue (Summer 2010) provides a detailed history of the organization and images including the one above.
Original documents from Record Group 15: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs are held at the National Archives.. Click Case Files of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty & Pension Association to view images.
For more information you’ll want to read Mary Frances Berry’s My Face is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
1st U.S. Colored Cavalry 
African Americans experience the most challenging situations living in the United States.
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