Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920

"There is so much to learn from this remarkable book, which was published in 1993. It shows how the Black Baptist church—and Black churches in general—provided a crucial political space for African American women, during a time in which most Black women did not have access to the vote. The book focuses on 1880 to 1920, from post-Reconstruction through the Jim Crow period. Higginbotham shows that, despite the obstacles erected against their participation in American democracy, these women were able to still engage in political activity using the Black Baptist church as a public space. Higginbotham focuses on their work around racial and gender self-help in the Black community. She also demonstrates the significance of feminist politics in this era. “Black women were central to the story of suffrage” Perhaps the most significant contribution of Righteous Discontent is the concept of ‘the politics of respectability,’ which we still talk about today. Higginbotham argues that in their quest for racial uplift, these women endorsed what can best be described as ‘the dominant white Victorian ideal of the period,’ which imposed ideas about respectability and morality in the hope that if Black people would change the way that they lived, the way they acted, and even the way that they dressed, it would help end racism because white people could see that Black people were essentially worthy. This controversial framework is debated to this day. Righteous Discontent shows how this framework shaped Black life and culture. This book still informs a lot of our discussions about Black communities today. Black women were central to the story of suffrage. We tend to see the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 as a pivotal moment in starting the movement, which it was. But when we go back even further, we can see Black women’s activism, which began in churches way before Seneca Falls . Ideas about women’s rights and the vote were endorsed within the church context. Therefore the history of the suffrage movement in the United States cannot simply begin with Seneca Falls, it should be traced back to the earliest efforts among Black women in Black religious spaces. Here’s where I think we can see the connection to Higginbotham’s work. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I’ve spent a lot of time writing about activists in the 1960s—and recently finished a book on civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer —to emphasize the point that even after the passage of the 19th amendment, many women still couldn’t vote. It’s not until the Voting Rights Act (1965) that we see Black women across the country having widespread access to the vote. So, when we’re talking about suffrage beyond the 19th amendment, Black women’s activism becomes even more important. A focus on someone like Fannie Lou Hamer in the fifties and the sixties shows that the fight for voting rights goes well beyond the 19th amendment."