Emmett J. Scott

Reared in Freedmen's Town, Texas, Emmett J. Scott was a journalist, newspaper editor, government official, author, and chief of staff, adviser, and ghostwriter to Booker T. Washington. He was frequently called "the power broker of the Tuskegee Machine": he was a Renaissance man, scholar, and political fixer. However, his life has not received a full examination until now.

Built upon fifty years of research, Maceo C. Dailey's Emmett J. Scott offers fascinating detail by describing Scott's role in promoting the Tuskegee Institute. Before his death, Dailey had nearly singular access to the Scott papers at Morgan State University, which have been officially closed for decades. Readers will finally be exposed to Scott's behind-the-scenes contributions to racial uplift and will see Scott's influential role in advancing not only the Tuskegee Institute but also the Booker T. Washington agenda.

Editors Will Guzmán and David H. Jackson lend their own expertise in bringing Dailey's lifetime project to fruition. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis, a close friend of Maceo Dailey, provides a timely foreword. Former Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown, granddaughter of Emmett J. Scott, reflects on her relationship with Scott and his impact in the afterword.

Taken together, this work of biography is an impressive reference and an essential endeavor of recovery, one that restores to prominence the life and legacy of Emmett J. Scott.

"Dailey's well-researched biography of Scott offers an
alternative to the traditional history of Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee
Institute. . . . Dailey provides a vivid and compelling history
of a man known publicly as Washington's liaison but who masterfully became the
architect of the Tuskegee Machine through his behind-the-scenes leadership,
political savviness, and astute personality. Through Dailey's first volume of
Scott's life, we learn that Scott was a race man and a leading 'power broker of
the Tuskegee Machine.'" --Sheena Harris Hayes, Journal of Southern History
90, no. 3 (August 2024)

Maceo Crenshaw Dailey Jr. (d. 2015) was the first director of African American Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. Recognized nationally for his scholarship, Dailey published numerous chapters, essays, articles, and books on African American history, and he served as assistant editor for The Journal of Negro History. He was past chair of Humanities Texas and the Philosophical Society of Texas.

Will Guzmán is professor of history at Prairie View A&M University and is author of the award-winning Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands: Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and Black Activism. His research interests are in African American and Afro–Puerto Rican history. He lives in Prairie View, Texas.

David H. Jackson Jr. is associate provost for Graduate Education and dean of the School of Graduate Studies & Research at Florida A&M University. A prolific scholar of African American studies, he has published nearly two dozen scholarly articles, book chapters, and book reviews; has presented papers at numerous professional conferences; and is the author or editor of five scholarly books, the most recent of which is Booker T. Washington and the Struggle against White Supremacy: The Southern Educational Tours, 1908–1912. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

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