Col. Eugene Scott

Military officer and newspaper publisher Colonel Eugene Scott was born October 14, 1939 in Miami, Florida to Bertha Mae Jones and Eugene Franklin Scott. Raised in Chicago, he attended A. O. Sexton Elementary School and Englewood High School where he was a sharpshooter in the ROTC. Scott graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, Florida in 1957. He continued in ROTC at Florida A&M University where he graduated with a B.A. degree in political science in 1961.

Scott entered the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1962 and served as a tank commander at Fort Riley, Kansas. He then served two tours of duty in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1971. He also commanded tank forces in Germany, started the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and was a tank instructor at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Scott then was the principal staff officer for training and operations for the 8th Infantry Division Combat Ready Forces in Germany, where he was responsible for the training of 23,000 soldiers. Scott completed his twenty-eight year military career as a post commander for Fort Stewart in Georgia and Fort Monroe in Virginia, two major U.S. Army installations with budgets in excess of $200 million. Scott, a favorite of General Norman Swartzkopf, retired from the Army just prior to the Gulf War in 1990.

After retirement, Scott joined Sengstacke Enterprises as executive assistant to John H. H. Sengstacke for three years. Scott then managed the company’s five newspapers and for more than ten years served as general manager and publisher of the Chicago Daily Defender. In this capacity and in retirement, Scott has served on a number of boards and committees including the Bronzeville Military Academy, the Illinois Military Flags Commission, the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, the Attorney General’s African American Advisory Committee, the National Advisory Committee of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois, the Chicago Area Boy Scouts, and as chairman of the National African American Military Museum.

Scott and his wife, Beverly Reed Scott, live in Chicago. They share eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Colonel Eugene Scott was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 1, 2003 and May 25 2022.