Forming the Woman’s Convention promised black women visible proof of their organizational capability.

Evidence

But Pitts was most ecstatic about witnessing the formation of the Woman’s Convention. She asserted that it “will give our sisters an opportunity to prove their ability to control great forces and to do mission work in a practical and systematic way.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 767

Categorization

• XREF: Proving ability to control great forces to a skeptical onlooker is the external-facing half of the politics of respectability, prefiguring the coined term. — connects to: Northern Baptist colleges created the educated black women who led the convention movement. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 119; Black Baptist women’s state conventions were fully self-governing, male-excluding organizations — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 363; The Woman’s Convention saw NAACP membership as mandatory anti-lynching solidarity — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1016

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women’s state conventions were fully self-governing, male-excluding organizations #expands (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 363
• Northern Baptist colleges created the educated black women who led the convention movement. #qualifies (0.73) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 119