Belle Harris Bennett (December 3, 1852 – July 20, 1922), led the struggle for and won laity rights for women in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. She was the founding president of the Woman's Missionary Council of the Southern Methodist Church. Much of her work including fundraising and organizational efforts to provide higher education for a new professional class of social workers and community organizers in the Southern Methodist Church in the U.S. and abroad. Her carefully collaborative support for African Americans and immigrants was considered radical at that time by Southerners. She was a suffragist and supporter of temperance as well.