The Master’s Tools Will Do Just Fine: Booker T. Washington, Racial Capitalism, Immigration, and the Utility of Differentiation

Abstract

Booker T. Washington understood capitalism quite well. It was a system that not only promoted uneven social terrain but depended on such conditions to sustain itself. Washington had an acute grasp on the reality that everyone could not succeed within the system of capitalism. For this reason, the Principal of Tuskegee Institute, through his verbalized and written words, would attempt to elevate the socio-political position of African Americans by denigrating the image of European immigrants, Native Americans, and other racialized groups that were struggling to survive under the accepted principles of the Gilded Age. Washington didn’t fight to eliminate the worldwide system that fed on African Americans to create massive profits. No, he would attempt to preserve the system by replacing African Americans with other racialized groups that would take their place at the bottom of the racial totem pole