Black Baptist women prioritized preventive over rescue social work

Evidence

The minutes for 1915 note: “Social service work is being comprehended and the vital thing is instruction—how to ameliorate and prevent the evils of society, provide against the occurrence of those evils which are sapping so much of the vitality of our race. Remembering preventive work—is more important than rescue work.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1508

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows the shift from charity/rescue toward structural prevention as the WC’s self-understood mission, a core respectability-politics move.
• XREF: connects to: Black Baptist women publicly demanded progressive social-service ministries — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 807; Baptist missionary women adopted social-work monitoring of young urban female migrants — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 838; Black Baptist women adopted efficiency as an organizing watchword — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1509

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women adopted efficiency as an organizing watchword #expands (0.78) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1509