Black women feminists policed their own claims against clerical office.

Evidence

Despite the broad number of roles that Broughton believed the Bible authorized and her rather unusual autonomy within her own household, she explicitly warned women against the danger of aspiring to roles that had no female precedents in the Bible. She denied that women should have access to the clergy or perform the clergy’s role of establishing new churches, baptizing converts, and administering the Eucharist. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 613

Categorization

• XREF: Directly exemplifies the politics of respectability’s internal policing - women radicals voluntarily rejecting ‘unprecedented’ roles to stay legitimate. — connects to: Black Baptist women faced pulpit and voice denial even among supportive male leaders — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 340; Black women leaders contested the equation of church authority with ordination — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 367; Black church women’s drive targeted internal community inequities, unlike club women’s external racism defense — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 696 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Is this self-limitation strategic legitimacy-seeking or genuine belief in propriety? The book’s stated thesis invites this question.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Black women leaders contested the equation of church authority with ordination #expands (0.82) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 367