Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine

by Maceo C. Dailey, Will Guzmán (Editor), David H. Jackson (Editor), David Levering Lewis (Foreword by), Elaine Brown (Afterword)

Overview

Reared in Houston (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. Called “the power broker of the Tuskegee Machine,” Scott 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 2015 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 his influential role in advancing not only the Tuskegee Institute but also the Booker T. Washington agenda.

Editors Will Guzmán and David H. Jackson Jr. 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 Dailey’s, provides a timely foreword. Former Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown, Scott’s granddaughter, reflects on his impact and her relationship with the Scott family 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682831304
Publisher:	Texas Tech University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2023
Series:	Afro-Texans
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	911,852
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

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.