Black Baptist leadership believed respectable conduct could disarm white prejudice

Evidence

Burroughs stated: “Let pastors and leaders teach their people to so conduct themselves at their work and on the streets and public carriers as to disarm racial antagonism and prejudice. We can change public sentiment and get a place among the efficient forces of society by our well-doing … The law-abiding, industrious man is always stronger than a lawless one.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1617

Categorization

• XREF: Core formulation of the politics of respectability the reader is studying — bears directly on the coined concept and its causal logic. — connects to: Church leaders aimed not merely to preserve but to reshape the black community. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 54; Black Baptists policed cultural difference from white middle-class norms as retrogressive — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 918; Black Baptist women wielded respectability as a weapon against biological racism — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 882 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women wielded respectability as a weapon against biological racism #expands (0.88) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 882
• Early black women’s Baptist organizing deflected controversy by foregrounding domestic respectability themes. #exemplifies (0.85) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 349
• Black leaders in 1865 predicted persistent Southern prejudice against them #complicates (0.80)
• Meeting spaces let black Baptist women define themselves against racist depiction #expands (0.78) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 854