The author argues that the rabbit's foot can be interpreted as one of many traditions arising from the ambiguous social and political relationship between Black and White cultures in the early twentieth century, and that this seemingly insignificant practice is embedded in a range of beliefs and practices that reveal how social power is acquired and social relations negotiated.

For both White and Black fetish users, a core belief is that possession of a body part of an Other allows one to gain (or maintain) social power over that group. Early explanations of the custom stress that the rabbit's foot should be obtained under ritual circumstances in a graveyard accordingly, Ellis analyzes the significance of the rabbit's foot in the context of related beliefs in both White and Black tradition that concern gravesite artifacts and animal body parts as substitutes for human body parts. This study considers the rabbit's foot as a fetish-a material object invested with extraordinary spiritual forces that becomes a metonym for an implied narrative and that is used as a means of gaining control over complex social relationships. The practice of carrying a rabbit's foot for luck was frequently recorded in Anglo American tradition beginning during the early twentieth century, and early records suggest that this custom was borrowed from African American folk magic.