IN THE NEWS | Child Welfare Systems Have Long Harmed Black Children Like Ma’Khia Bryant
Child Welfare Systems Have Long Harmed Black Children Like Ma’Khia Bryant
Instead of caring for Black children, they subject them to abuse and harsh conditions
By Crystal Webster
Washington Post
“The first orphanages in the United States were established in the antebellum North in cities with growing free Black populations. Yet, these institutions refused to admit Black children. The New York Orphan Asylum, founded in 1809, did not have any Black children and in Philadelphia, the Orphan Society explicitly identified Whiteness as a requirement for admission. In both cities, White Quaker women established private, segregated orphanages for Black children — the Philadelphia Shelter for Coloured Orphans (1822) and the New York Colored Orphan Asylum (1836). And yet these Black orphanages were fundamentally different: Rather than caring for Black children, they sent them out to complete indenture contracts at age 8 — term labor that lasted until they reached adulthood as domestic workers or on farms. It was very unlike the valued, skilled labor White children performed in apprenticeships during the same period.”