Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine by Maceo C. Dailey Jr (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine by Maceo C. Dailey Jr
• Sheena Harris Hayes

Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine. By Maceo C. Dailey Jr. Edited by Will Guzmán and David H. Jackson Jr. Afro-Texans. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2023. Pp. xvi, 424. $45.00, ISBN 978-1- 68283-123-6.)

In recent years, scholars have begun addressing the gaps in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century biographical studies, especially those of men and women at historically Black colleges and universities. Will Guzmán and David H. Jackson Jr. have edited and completed the first volume of the late Maceo C. Dailey Jr.’s much-anticipated biography Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine. Dailey’s book uncovers the often overlooked work and leadership of Emmett Jay Scott, an early-twentieth-century leader who, until now, has been relegated to the shadows of the much more well known Booker T. Washington. Not only does this biography complicate the traditional narrative of Washington as the sole mastermind behind the Tuskegee Machine, but it also reconstructs everything we thought we knew about Black male leadership in the early twentieth century by providing a closer reading of Tuskegee’s past.

Dailey’s well-researched biography of Scott offers an alternative to the traditional history of Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute by expanding our understanding of the solidarity between the “private secretary,” Scott, and the public “Wizard of Tuskegee,” Washington (p. 3). Dailey argues that Washington came to “rely on and many times defer to the genius of Scott in dealing with Tuskegee opposition” (p. 70). Even further, Dailey adds that “Scott did not hesitate to bring his detractors to the mourner’s bench, and this biography only sees itself as a lead, reinterpretative one in the modern, future series of works on Scott and those of his era” (p. 7).

The first eight chronological chapters cover Scott’s early life and his work at Tuskegee before the death of Washington. As with most biographies, the early pages reveal a closer glimpse into the more intimate and familial foundations of Scott. We learn that he hailed from Houston, Texas, enrolled at Wiley College at the age of fourteen, left two years later to secure employment, and eventually took a job at the Houston Post. Scott then co-founded and edited one of the first Black newspapers west of the Mississippi, the Texas Freeman. In 1897, after organizing Booker T. Washington’s visits to Houston and Prairie View State College (now Prairie View A&M University), Scott accepted a position as personal secretary to Washington, a relationship that [End Page 640] lasted nearly twenty years. Scott, by way of his association with Washington and Tuskegee, became so powerful that he represented Washington and spoke candidly about race and politics to Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Julius Rosenwald, and to Black America, as a leading spokesman of the race.

The true strength of these chapters is Dailey’s ability to incorporate the personal papers of Scott, which had been previously unavailable to the public. This gold mine of resources illuminates the internal methods and strategies employed by Scott. The reader learns that it was indeed Scott, and not solely Washington, who devised many of the strategies to position Washington as the leader of the African American community and to construct a network of Black and white leaders who would become Washington’s allies. The tensions between the two men are also revealed. One incident was Washington’s refusal to recommend Scott to an appointment with the William Howard Taft administration, reflecting Washington’s strong influence on Scott remaining at Tuskegee despite, as Dailey argues, Scott’s ambition to have “power, wealth, and prestige” (p. 131). Despite these presumably minor tensions, Dailey reveals how the two men worked so closely together—with their thoughts, ideas, and practices becoming so intertwined—that at many points it is impossible to decipher whose thoughts were whose.

The last three chapters detail Scott’s life after the 1915 passing of Booker T. Washington. We learn of his failure to secure the presidency of Tuskegee after Washington’s death...