The black women’s movement grew out of the church’s separate institution-building

Evidence

The men and women of the Talented Tenth took seriously the liberal impulse of the white northern Baptists, and set out to undermine attitudes and practices of paternalism and racism on the part of the white South and on the part of the American Baptist Home Mission Society as well. Black Baptist leaders championed the benefits of black-owned and controlled institutions, and they established their own denominational schools and conventions. Within this larger racial agenda, the Female Talented Tenth empowered itself by establishing separate missionary and educational organizations for work they believed only women could do. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 237

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Women’s church societies peaked then declined when merged with male-run groups — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 429; Women’s church-based organizing pursued separate spaces while remaining dependent on male approval — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 701; Church conventions gave poor Black women their only travel and intellectual growth outlets — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 768 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Separate female institutions gave black Baptist women greater authority #expands (0.92) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 389
• Black women organized separately after white women’s racism barred them #qualifies (0.78)
• Black Baptist women’s activism worked gradually and subversively, not through dramatic revolt #expands (0.75) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 113