Black women shaped collective sentiment through their two-thirds majority in the Baptist movement

Evidence

The church also functioned as a discursive, critical arena—a public sphere in which values and issues were aired, debated, and disseminated throughout the larger black community. The black Baptist convention movement facilitated the sharing and distribution of information through periodic statewide and national meetings, where thousands gathered and discussed issues of civic concern. Since black women constituted two-thirds of this movement, they had a crucial role in the formation of public sentiment and in the expression of a black collective will. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 63

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the public-sphere concept from Communication as Culture; the church as an institutionally separate space parallels Hall’s ‘institutional separatism’ and the broader infrastructure of counter-publics literature. — connects to: Rising racial solidarity among black Baptists ran parallel to rising gender consciousness among women — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 709; Black Baptist women actively promoted racial separatism and self-reliance — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 331; Black Baptist women held a double consciousness of simultaneous separateness and alliance — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 390 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Women’s collective labor, not just exceptional preachers, powered black Baptist churches #expands (0.88) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 40
• Black Baptist women’s activism worked gradually and subversively, not through dramatic revolt #expands (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 113
• Black Baptist women held a double consciousness of simultaneous separateness and alliance #qualifies (0.75) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 390
• Black Baptist women turned the Great Migration into voter mobilization despite their own disfranchisement #expands (0.73) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1029
• Black Baptist women actively promoted racial separatism and self-reliance #expands (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 331