What Du Bois noted has gone largely unstudied until now. In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives an account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community. Between 1880 and 1920, the Black church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat. Focusing on the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious movement ...
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What Du Bois noted has gone largely unstudied until now. In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives an account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community. Between 1880 and 1920, the Black church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat. Focusing on the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious movement among black Americans, Higginbotham shows us how women were largely responsible for making the church a force for self-help in the black community. In her account, we see how the efforts of women enabled the church to build schools, provide food and clothing for the poor, and offer a host of social welfare services. And we observe the challenges of black women to patriarchal theology. Class, race, and gender dynamics continually interact in Higginbotham's history. She depicts the co-operation, tension, and negotiation between men and women church leaders as well as the interaction of southern black and northern white women's groups. Higginbotham's history portrays the lives of individuals within this movement. She addresses the role of black Baptist women in contesting racism and sexism through a "politics of respectability" and in demanding civil rights, voting rights, equal employment, and educational opportunities. "Righteous discontent" assigns women their place in the story of political and social activism in the black church. It is central to an understanding of African American social and cultural life and a critical chapter in the history of religion in America.
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