By Their Boostraps by Chuck Peeler https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm en-us 2017-03-22 18:53:20 UTC 2024-11-22 07:12:40 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Manbag.png Slowly but Surely peelerc https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/161940893             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. 
]]> 2017-03-22 18:55:50 UTC https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/161940893 Cast Down Your Own Buckets draganova https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/161978927 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.   ]]> 2017-03-22 21:46:37 UTC https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/161978927 Backbone of the Southern Economy campbella5 https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/162313931          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.]]> 2017-03-24 04:08:01 UTC https://padlet.com/peelerc/cz5uwtq0g1pm/wish/162313931