Female Baptist convention delegates numbered few but were highly educated
Evidence
Relative to men, the numbers of women delegates to the annual meetings of the American National Baptist Convention were small. The minutes for 1892 report 213 delegates as present. Of the total, only 32 were women and the rest were ministers. Of the 32 women present, 53 percent indicated college training; 9 percent indicated night, public, or common schools; and 38 percent, no schooling. Nearly 38 percent of the women identified themselves as teachers, while 25 percent reported church-related work, such as organist, missionary, or matron in an old folks’ home. Nearly 38 percent of the women indicated no occupation.
— Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1231
Categorization
XREF: Paints a profile of the educated black Baptist women who would lead the women’s movement — connects to the book’s later treatment of the politics of respectability. — connects to: State women’s conventions elevated ordinary, previously unknown rural and urban women into public roles — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 364; Northern Baptist colleges created the educated black women who led the convention movement. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 119; Baptist women’s organizations centered poor working women rather than an elite class — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 943 (+1 more)