While studying gender in my PhD program, I was assigned to read Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920. At the risk of sounding like Nerd Girl, it was the best book I read all year. One of its strengths was that it introduced readers to the African-American middle class that existed between 1890 and 1960. Of special interest to me were photos of male and female seminary students studying theology—including Koine Greek—under male and female professors. Most white seminaries didn’t admit women till the 1970s, let alone hire them as professors. I had been taught that the U.S. Women’s Movement in…