Book, Black Abolitionists B. Quarles~ Discussion & Reading Chapter 3. The New York African Society for Mutual Relief (NYASMR) - ~JAMES VARICK~ Founded in 1808, the New York African Society for Mutual Relief (NYASMR) was the leading antebellum secular charitable and cooperative organization to, Like, other mutual aid societies, NYASMR collected funds to assist the sick, widowed, and the orphaned, and to help defray burial costs. The Society also provided financial support for black schools. It served the everyday needs of the free black community in Manhattan. The founders included William Hamilton and William Miller, who, with other prominent black men in the city, met at the Rose Street Academy, a school for black children in Manhattan, to begin planning the organization. The Society's strong links to the black churches was evidenced in its membership, which included eight ministers. James Varick was the first chaplain of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief (1810) and a vice-president of the African [Bible Society (1817). In 1821, he was a member of the group of Blacks who petitioned the state constitutional convention for the right to vote. He supported the establishment of Freedoms Journal, the first American black newspaper, in 1827.
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