Black Baptist women turned pro-war patriotism into leverage for racial justice demands

Evidence

In the “safe space” of the Woman’s Convention, black Baptist women critiqued the nation’s democratic rhetoric during World War I. Filled with patriotic fervor, S. Willie Layten’s presidential address in September 1918 called upon black women to help win the war. Layten advised her sisters to conserve food and fuel, purchase Liberty Bonds and war stamps, and to cultivate liberty gardens, but she proclaimed no less ardently that patriots on the front line become “restless and discontent when their rights are abridged at home.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1020

Categorization

• XREF: The loyalist-bargain pattern echoes Colonels’ contrast in ‘Home Boy’/Naqvi about proving loyalty to claim rights—and generally the strategy of leveraging wartime service for civil rights, as in Du Bois. — connects to: Black Baptist women strategically mixed war and domestic imagery to justify public activism — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 670; Black Baptist women fused a rhetoric of war with one of domesticity — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 670; Black Baptist women actively promoted racial separatism and self-reliance — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 331 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women fused a rhetoric of war with one of domesticity #expands (0.82) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 670
• Black Baptist women blended feminine and masculine self-images as homemakers and soldiers #expands (0.76) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 650
• Black Baptist women actively promoted racial separatism and self-reliance #complicates (0.74) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 331