Cross-denominational church societies trained black women as community leaders.

Evidence

The club movement among black women owed its very existence to the groundwork of organizational skill and leadership training gained through women’s church societies. Missionary societies had early on brought together women with little knowledge of each other and created bonds of sisterly cooperation at the city and state levels. … Not only Baptists but black Methodists, Presbyterians, and women in other denominations came together in associations that transformed unknown and unconfident women into leaders and agents of social service and racial self-help in their communities. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 107

Categorization

• XREF: Chronologically contradicts any reading where the NACW (1896) originated black women’s organizing skills. — connects to: Female church workers pushed formal training over emotional preaching — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 356; Black women embraced domestic training partly to counter stereotypes of promiscuity. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 473; National women’s church networks disseminated new reform techniques to local communities — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 811 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Black church women were central to the church’s public role as racial self-help #corroborates (0.82) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 37
• Black Baptist women leaders bridged church and secular reform networks #expands (0.78) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 829
• Black Baptist uplift ideology paired trained women with ministers as racial saviors #expands (0.76) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 126
• Separate female institutions gave black Baptist women greater authority #qualifies (0.74) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 389