Black Baptist women made education the race’s central hope through moral suasion and fund-raising

Evidence

The black Baptist women’s conventions insisted that upward mobility for individuals and for African Americans as a group depended primarily upon education. Their fund-raising drives, children’s bands, self-denial days, and even temperance crusades all reinforced this message and influenced many poor, uneducated blacks to divert money from personal consumption into the building of schools. For example, the Baptist Woman’s Era, the monthly news organ of the Alabama women, kept Selma University before the public.*3 It presented the school’s curriculum and fees, told of fund-raising activities and campus events, and solicited support from people of all ages.°+ In 1901 the Baptist Woman’s Era editorialized: “That parent robs his own child who fails to educate him when it is in his power to do so. The most that a parent can give his child is a good education, with all that word means. This we ought to do even if we have to make a great sacrifice. Our hope as a race lies in a good Christian education.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 316

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s article ‘Grafting & Growth’ less directly, but more to her recurring theme of education-as-racial-lift ideology — cross-links to writings on Tuskegee/Hampton educational philosophy. — connects to: Baptist women raised thousands to build girls’ dormitories at denominational colleges — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 365; Black Baptist women saw their domestic teaching role as decisive for racial uplift — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 388; Local black women’s clubs rapidly multiplied and raised growing sums for education. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 421 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Baptist women’s campaigns induced poor blacks to redirect money to schools #expands (0.88) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 316
• Black Baptist women prized institutions owned and staffed by their own race #corroborates (0.82) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 308
• Black Baptist women actively promoted racial separatism and self-reliance #qualifies (0.78) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 331