Exclusion from electoral politics drove black women to build their own representative bodies.

Evidence

The Baptist women’s convention legitimated a new form of representative politics. The convention afforded black women, though denied participation in the electoral procedures of the official public culture because of race and gender, the opportunity to learn about and participate in the rudiments of self-government within the separatist alternative world of black women’s organizations.’ It constituted a black women’s congress, so to speak, where women as delegates from local churches, district associations, and state conventions assembled as a national body, discussed and debated issues of common concern, disseminated information outward to broader female constituencies, and implemented nationally supported programs. Far from isolating black women in a separate and marginal domain, the convention accentuated their presence within the denomination and, equally important, thrust issues of race and gender into the broad discursive arena of American social reform. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 690

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels ‘parallel institution’ literature and separatist organizing logic — the separate sphere empowered rather than marginalized, an engine for the respectability strategy detailed later. — connects to: Fear of isolation deters black women from publicly embracing feminist politics; Black Baptist women turned the Great Migration into voter mobilization despite their own disfranchisement — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1029; Black political advancement depended on protest and own-group organization. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3355 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women turned the Great Migration into voter mobilization despite their own disfranchisement #exemplifies (0.88) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1029
• Nineteenth century black women suffered most from sexism yet lacked collective power #corroborates (0.82) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 465
• Black women urged self-governed institutions rather than white-defined approbation #corroborates (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 337
• Black political advancement depended on protest and own-group organization. #expands (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3355
• Women’s failed bid to be included in the black suffrage amendment forged American feminisms #corroborates (0.78)
• Generic terms in suffrage histories suppress the exclusion of black women. #corroborates (0.76) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 36
• Black men’s disfranchisement compounded, not created, black women’s political powerlessness #qualifies (0.76) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 48
• Black communities can act as autonomous political forces rather than class fractions #corroborates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2199
• An electoral blank-out breaks the premise that black voters are captured #qualifies (0.74) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 623