Higginbotham Righteous Discontent Summary

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s Righteous Discontent chapters and Jacqueline Jones’ Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow chapters each share themes about gender and the role of black women. In chapter two of Righteous Discontent, Higginbotham discusses how women entered the education system and how women became more than just mothers but were teachers and nurses as well. According to Higginbotham, the illiteracy rate among Southern African Americans was 95 percent (19). Eventually, though, both black men and women were allowed to go to school – women’s education was the main focus in this chapter, however. African American women were embraced by the education system because many church leaders believed that women should be more than just housewives …show more content…
I’m not really sure how that happened. Maybe because through repetition and being forced to read more than women in their occupations this was so? I mean, I’m sure women might have read a few books to their children, but they’re not complex books. Maybe even when men talked amongst themselves about various jobs they had and what parts they were using or needed, and such added to their vernacular and knowledge which made them seem to be more literate; I’m not sure. Another passage, that we sort of touched on in class, was: “Parents at times hired out children to white employers in order to lessen the crowding at home and bring in extra money” (91). While we didn’t directly discuss this passage, we did talk about young, teen boys leaving their homes to find work. When I first saw this passage, I instinctively thought of Richard Wright’s Native Son. It’s been a little while since I’ve read the book, but this passage did remind me of the story a bit since Bigger’s home was a bit overcrowded and his mom did want him working for a white employer to bring in more money for the