Baptist women’s organizations rejected prestige-seeking elites who shunned the poor

Evidence

The same report accuses middle-class elites of perceiving social service to be no more than a fad, a vehicle for “social prestige.” The report sought to discourage acceptance of such elites as leaders of church work. “They are insincere; they are not doing anything practical; they are full of theories on the solution of great problems, but a poor, ragged, dirty, forsaken women [sic] is as objectionable to them as a leper.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1629

Categorization

• XREF: Shows respectability was deployed internally against class pretension, not only against white judgment — refines the reader’s picture of the coined concept’s dual policing function. — connects to: Baptist women’s organizations centered poor working women rather than an elite class — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 943; Black Baptist women read middle-class propriety as a demand for full inclusion, not submission. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 457; The American public idealized black women embracing roles they rejected — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 534

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women read middle-class propriety as a demand for full inclusion, not submission. #qualifies (0.74) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 457
• The American public idealized black women embracing roles they rejected #complicates (0.72) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 534