Eddie Scott
(1928-2017)
Fighter for Nevada Equal Rights Legislation
Eddie Scott moved from Louisiana to Reno in 1950 to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad in Sparks. After a brief stint in California, he returned to Reno in 1957 to live and work, and ended up making a major impact on the northern Nevada community.
With other African American leaders in Nevada, including Charles Kellar and Bertha Woodard, he fought to win enactment of equal rights legislation in the Nevada Legislature. Scott and Kellar began working closely together after the West Coast Regional NAACP authorized, in 1959, a statewide political action committee in Nevada to address discriminatory practices. Scott was one of the four members on the NAACP Coordinating Council from Reno.
Scott was elected president of the Reno/Sparks Branch of the NAACP in 1961 and served for 4 years. He served another term as president from 1967-68. During his time as president of the NAACP, he led several demonstrations and protests against local casinos and hotels in the Reno/Sparks community that would not allow African Americans to enter their establishments. Although he was laid off his job because of his activism, he persisted in his fight for equal rights.
In 1961, he again joined with Kellar, a legal trailblazer in Nevada, to draft the legislation creating a Nevada Equal Rights Commission. Despite strong opposition, after a well-publicized sit-in at the café in the Overland Hotel, the legislation was finally passed, marking an important first step in ensuring equal treatment for all races in Nevada.
The bill established the Equal Rights Commission and gave it subpoena power and $2,500 per biennium for expenses. The Legislature included a statement: “It is hereby declared to be the public policy of the State of Nevada to protect the welfare, prosperity, health and peace of all the people of the state, and to foster the right of all persons reasonably to seek, obtain and hold employment and housing accommodations, and reasonably to seek and be granted services in places of public accommodation without discrimination, distinction or restriction because of race, religious creed, color, national origin or ancestry.”
In 1963, Scott organized and led a group of Nevadans in a car caravan to Washington, D.C. for the historic March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Scott later served as director of the Race Relations Center in Reno for 12 years. In 1998, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Reno-Sparks Branch of the NAACP.
[Photo courtesy of Our Story, Inc.]