Emmett Jay Scott

Emmett Jay Scott (February 13, 1873 – December 12, 1957) was an African American journalist, newspaper editor, academic, and government official who was Booker T. Washington's closest advisor at the Tuskegee Institute. He was responsible for maintaining Washington's nationwide "Tuskegee machine," with its close links to black business leadership, white philanthropists, and Republican politicians from the local level to the White House.

After Washington's death, Scott lost his Tuskegee connection, but moved to Washington, D.C., as Special Advisor of Black Affairs to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Scott was the highest-ranking African American in Democrat Woodrow Wilson's presidential administration. After 1919, he was less and less visible in national affairs, with the NAACP largely assuming the leadership role that Booker T. Washington had dominated.