Editing Free Black Community (section)

== Origins and Growth ==

Philadelphia's Free Black Community grew from multiple sources throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Some African Americans had been free since colonial times—descendants of the earliest Black residents of Pennsylvania, some of whom had arrived as indentured servants rather than slaves. Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 freed children born to enslaved mothers after that date (though not until age 28), gradually increasing the free population. Individual manumissions by slaveholders—particularly Quaker slaveholders responding to their faith's growing opposition to bondage—added to the community. Migration from the South brought both those who had escaped slavery and those who had been free but sought the relative safety of a Northern city.<ref name="winch">{{cite book |last=Winch |first=Julie |title=Philadelphia's Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787-1848 |year=1988 |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>

The community grew rapidly in the early 19th century. In 1790, Philadelphia County had approximately 2,500 Black residents; by 1830, that number had risen to nearly 16,000, and by 1860 to over 22,000. This growth made Philadelphia home to the largest urban Black population in the antebellum North. The community developed geographic concentration in the southern districts of the city, particularly in the area bounded by Pine, South, 4th, and 8th Streets—the Seventh Ward that would later be the subject of W.E.B. Du Bois's groundbreaking sociological study. This concentration resulted partly from discrimination that excluded Black residents from other neighborhoods and partly from the advantages of community—living near churches, schools, and neighbors who could provide mutual support.<ref name="nash"/>