One is Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), who, “by insisting that Black people stay poor, uneducated, and docile,” became “a wealthy man, pointedly disregarding his own advice.” He emboldened white supremacists, as they could then point to a Black man who was making their points for them. Cane adds that “if there were Fox News in 1901,” Washington would have had his own show.
Another is Edward William Brooke III, a Republican who was elected senator from Massachusetts in 1966. A Time Magazine profile “glorified” him a month after he took office “for not being like the other Blacks.” But while Brooke tended not to explicitly align himself with Black movements, nonetheless he was “unafraid of calling out the GOP’s racism”—and today, the GOP avoids mentioning him.