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In a society built upon the enslavement and genocide of African Americans, it's no wonder that white southerners felt threatened by the population of African Americans. African Americans were the majority of the population in four of the five counties mentioned in the attached article. Senator Butler's proposal of mass migration shares the sentiments of other white southerners who detested the labor force created by black people. Information on white and black laborers was collected and used as evidence to disprove Senator Butler's theory. It was reported from five counties that black labor workers were preferred because their work was rated as more satisfactory than white workers. If a large scale migration had occurred, farm owners would have experienced a drastic decrease in profits. With white laborers working the fields, efficiency would decrease, affecting profits from each harvest, which would in turn  lead to the failure of South Carolina's economy.
The gradual change in socioeconomic status of the African American community as mentioned in "The Charleston Negro" made white southerners uncomfortable because it removed the class barrier between whites and blacks. As more African Americans became skilled tradesmen, they were able to demand slightly higher wages for their work and could potentially be employers themselves. "Labor in South Carolina" was published in 1881 while "The Charleston Negro" was written in 1893. Senator Butler's theory was disproved through the reports mentioned in the article below, as well as explicit statements of Charleston's fate without African Americans. In "The Charleston Negro," a white man's statement that African Americans are "poorer than you can comprehend" is one reason why they take low paying jobs. Black laborers do the jobs that most whites are not willing to do. This includes agricultural work and menial service jobs. Despite evidence disproving Senator Butler's theory, Southern whites would have been content to believe that the absence of African Americans would improve their quality of life to preserve their ideals of racial superiority.

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It is easy to see how much the work of African Americans in the post Reconstruction era was devalued. Though they were responsible for the majority of labor forces, African Americans were seen as unnecessary for any states economy, especially that of South Carolina’s. The difference between the “Charleston Negro” and “Labor in South Carolina” goes into showing that. While the article “Charleston Negro” recognizes the impact of the work of African Americans, the “Labor in South Carolina” states the complete opposite. Starting off the report, the 1881 article makes the claim that South Carolina, specifically Charleston, would “greatly improve by the migration of a larger portion of negroes to other states.” It goes further into explaining why that would be so and how the African American population is holding back the Southern state from prospering economically. However, twelve years later, the same city posts otherwise.  “The Charleston Negro” explains that if the African American population were to move, as the “Labor In South Carolina” article suggested, that the state would in fact, collapse. Despite the New York Times article pointing out the clear significance of African Americans in the Southern economy and American economy in general, no improvement or recognition was made. In 1895, Booker T. Washington addressed this issue in the Atlanta Compromise. He was not arguing that African Americans need to be accepted fully by the white community, but their hard work and contribution to the work forces needed to be taken into consideration. Washington points out how significant both races are in his speech by saying “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” This shows and supports the “Charleston Negro” article in saying that by working together and more so equally, the two races will be able to uniformly build up the Southern economy.

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Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech

On September 18, 1895, African-American spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His "Atlanta Compromise" address, as it came to be called, was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history. Although the organizers of the exposition worried that "public sentiment was not prepared for such an advanced step," they decided that inviting a black speaker would impress Northern visitors with the evidence of racial progress in the South. Washington soothed his listeners' concerns about "uppity" blacks by claiming that his race would content itself with living "by the productions of our hands."

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:

One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,"Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are"- cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race,"Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed-blessing him that gives and him that takes. There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:

The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed;

And close as sin and suffering joined We march to fate abreast...

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third [of] its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.

Source: Louis R. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 583-587.

See Also: W.E.B. DuBois Critiques Booker T. Washington
Making the Atlanta Compromise: Booker T. Washington Is Invited to Speak
"Equal and Exact Justice to Both Races": Booker T. Washington on the Reaction to his Atlanta Compromise Speech
"Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are": Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise Speech

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Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech

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On September 18, 1895, African-American spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His "Atlanta Compromise" address, as it came to be called, was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history.

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The southern Post-Reconstruction era was a turbulent and telling time for race relations in the United States. Economic and social drives brought about the reinstitution of slavery and racism in different forms and disguises. In many rural areas, vagrancy laws, crop lien, and convict leasing replaced slavery as a way for corporations and white landowners to utilize free labor and enforce white supremacy. As urban industry began to replace agriculture, however, an ever-growing African American population in expanded urban networks presented white Southerners with new discomforts. Whites were now forced to live within close proximity of African Americans without an established patriarchal and dominating relationship. In other words, poor and middle class whites were almost indistinguishable from similarly classed African Americans. In response, Jim Crow laws (along with disfranchisement legislation) reestablished African Americans as second-class citizens by allowing businesses, establishments, public institutions, and voting centers to discriminate against African Americans.

The Jim Crow segregated society became the status quo for almost every southern city in the United States. African Americans were forced to give up seats on buses in favor of whites, move over on sidewalks to let whites pass, and queue behind whites in grocery stores and retail stores. While many African Americans were reluctant to believe a solution to their second-class citizenry was possible, others developed tentative plans to overcome the daily indignities of Jim Crow society. Some visionaries sought a reactionary, strong, and explicit response to Jim Crow legislation. Others believed that a gradual self-help method would be the safest way to gain equal rights. The New York Times article below portrays Charleston as a city that is being effected by a gradual self-help method of gaining equal rights, evidenced by the city's dependence on African American labor, African Americans' acceptance of lower wages, and the apparent vocational training of African Americans in Charleston.

The article states that, while whites pay no particular attention to the African Americans of Charleston, "one cannot escape the belief that if every negro should move out of Charleston today the city would starve to death in a week." The author also mentions that African Americans are present in some vocational occupations: "The barbers, of course, are negroes, but so are the tailors, the shoemakers, the painters." An observation is also succinctly made about the willingness of African Americans to accept lower wages: "The negroes work for less." These statements are truly telling observations from a visiting white Northerner, and are consistent with the popular self-help ideas presented by early activists such as Booker T. Washington (see Washington speech on right). Put simply, the self-help movement promoted internal change among African Americans (sobriety, accepting low-paying jobs, learning a skilled trade) to positively influence the way whites perceived the African American community in the long term. Based on the article below, Charleston was a city that closely followed this proposed model of social change.