Uplift ideology was progressive and conservative at once for northern Baptists

Evidence

Sale’s candid acknowledgment stood at the core of the northern Baptists’ conception of the Talented Tenth. Through the black educated elite, the degraded masses would be introduced to the values of white, middle-class Protestant America. The Talented Tenth would guide the black masses along the journey up and away from the heritage of slavery. This constituted the very goal of uplift—a goal at once progressive and conservative. Its progressive, in fact subversive, side remained obvious to southern and most northern whites, who frowned upon ideas that presumed for blacks the identical educational standards and cultural practices of middle-class whites. … According to northern Baptists, it was the men and women of the Talented Tenth who assured race management—that is, control of the masses—and consequently the well-being of the nation. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 146

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Talented Tenth/uplift program as simultaneously subversive (demanding equal standards) and conservative (race management).
• XREF: Connects to Evelyn Higginbotham’s larger frame that uplift/respectability was double-edged, and to Du Bois’s own conception of the Talented Tenth. — connects to: Northern Baptist women’s reform agenda fused anti-Catholic nativism with defense of public schools — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 534; American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 41; Northern evangelicals of the era backed antislavery and immigrant public schooling — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 48 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Northern evangelicals of the era backed antislavery and immigrant public schooling #exemplifies (0.82) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 48
• Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children #exemplifies (0.82) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 47
• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right #expands (0.78) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 41