Racialized job titles marked Black women as subordinate within white missions

Evidence

Identifying leaders among the black women with whom they came in contact in Sabbath schools, industrial classes, and other organized societies, the northern white women first appointed black women under the title “Bible women.” Many Bible women performed the same duties as the white missionaries, although the title “missionary” was reserved for whites alone. In 1887 the northern white women employed black women under the title “colored assistant,” a more racially charged and explicitly subordinate label than the more neutral “Bible woman.” In 1891, however, the WBHMS abandoned racial distinctions and adopted the title “missionary” for both blacks and whites. The more egalitarian policy was a direct outgrowth of collegiate education and missionary training programs for black women, coupled with blacks’ growing assertiveness against white paternalism. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 447

Categorization

• DEFINE: Details how appointment title shifts (‘Bible women’ to ‘colored assistant’ to ‘missionary’) encoded racial hierarchy and its later formal abandonment.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core interest in the politics of respectability - how Black women navigated white paternalist structures while asserting equal status. — connects to: Enslaved black women worked as hard as men but were barred from supervisory roles — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 62; Black women named their race in group titles because exclusion forced it — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 470

Broader Connections

• Enslaved black women worked as hard as men but were barred from supervisory roles #expands (0.85) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 62
• Black women named their race in group titles because exclusion forced it #exemplifies (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 470