‘Unspeakable tragedy’: Colleagues, friends remember ‘sincere friend’ Michael Scott

Lawndale, the West Side community where Michael Scott was born and reared, received the majority of his attention after he graduated college. As the years progressed, he added students of the Chicago Public Schools into his public service mission.

It was that commitment to students that earned him the Chicago Defender 2009 Newsmaker award for Education, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from a non-profit organization he was to receive a day after his death. The 60-year-old’s body was found Monday morning by police along the Chicago River embankment in the 300 block of North Orleans. He suffered a single gunshot to the left side of his head. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office ruled his death a suicide. A gun was recovered underneath his body and no note was found at the scene. The Chicago Police Department said a death investigation is ongoing.

“The family of Michael W. Scott deeply appreciates the outpouring of support during this time of unimaginable grief. Our personal loss is also shared by many throughout Chicago, the home he loved so much. We will miss him greatly,” Scott’s family said in a statement.

Scott was scheduled to accept the award Tuesday from Life Directions, a non-profit organization that works with youth, said Life Directions board member Victor Dixon.

“The organization has been involved in Chicago Public Schools since 1990. Michael has always been a strong supporter of what we’ve been doing to help stave youth violence and reduce the dropout rate. The history of his involvement with the schools is the reason why we wanted to give him the award. We were looking forward to seeing him at the awards dinner,” Dixon, co-chairman of Life Directions’ board, told the Defender.

All who’ve developed a relationship or come in contact with the Chicago Board of Education president and owner of Michael Scott & Associates LLC, a real estate development and investment firm, said his untimely death is “unimaginable” and recalled the long legacy that made “the man.”

Scott became a fixture at City Hall during a threedecade span under four mayoral administrations, and was appointed president of the BOE three times under two mayors -- Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley.

He was also appointed president of the Chicago Park District Board in 1996, overseeing the Park District’s Citywide Capital Improvement Program. Among his accomplishments, Scott was the catalyst for the restoration of the Garfield Park Conservatory.

He was also a member of the boards of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and Regional Transportation Authority. He served on the National Boards of Directors of YMCA, Chicago Urban League, After School Matters and the Better Boys Foundation. He was also cochair of the West Side Historical Society. Scott was also general manager for Prime Cable and the vice president of local government affairs for AT&T.

For his work with the West Side Historical Society, he was scheduled to receive the 2010 A-E-O Meyer-Harte Award for his service.

Daley, who regarded Scott as a dear friend for several decades, was emotional about the news of his death and remembered Scott as dependable and loyal.

“I never had to worry about Michael. I could give him an assignment at the park district, the board of education, the RTA. I never, ever had to second-guess him. He had a characteristic about working with people, reaching out and taking situations that were very flammable, people excited, he could calm people down,” the mayor said Tuesday at an unrelated news conference.

Most recently, Scott was a member of the Chicago 2016 Outreach Advisory Council and was currently serving his third appointment as president of the school board at the time of his death.

“We are heartbroken and saddened by the unspeakable tragedy. Michael Scott’s commitment to Chicago Public Schools, and especially our school children, was longstanding,” said Ron Huberman, chief executive officer of CPS.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, previous CPS chief, said the city “lost a great leader, and the city’s school children have lost a devoted champion.”

One of Scott’s last stops in the days before his death was in Wallace Catfish restaurant on West Madison Street to discuss with a longtime friend youth violence in the city.

“He was in here last Friday. We’ve been friends for 40 years. He was upbeat. You can energize off this guy. He was happy with his marriage and his business. He wasn’t satisfied though with black eye the national media is giving the Chicago school system,” owner Wallace Davis, and former alderman, told the Defender.

They discussed Fenger honor student Derrion Albert’s death and solutions to take the “fear factor” away from the city's students in the wake of the incident, he said.

A product of the Lawndale neighborhood and CPS, Scott graduated from Fordham University with a bachelor's degree in urban planning and launched his career with Pyramidwest Develoopment Corp., where he was vice president.

Scott’s community activism was spawned after college graduation, said longtime friend Grady Jordan, Ph.D.

“I worked with his mother in the community and in the early 1970s his mother contacted me and said her son would be graduating soon and would need a job. I saw him as a bright, young man in the community and I arranged for him to get a job at the People’s Planning and Action Council. Their focus at that time was to build a shopping center in the Roosevelt Road and Kedzie Avenue area. The area had been burned down during the riots,” said Jordan.

Scott went on to become the Director of Community Development for the organization. During that time he was appointed by Byrne as president of the BOE. He served in the post from 1980 to 1981.

He went on to serve under the late Mayor Harold Washington, who appointed Scott as the director of the Chicago Department of Special Events and special assistant to the mayor in charge of communications. Under the late Mayor Eugene Sawyer, he reprised his role as director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events.

Jordan, who said Scott always referred to him as ‘Doc,’ also worked closely with Scott in the development of Collins High School on the West Side. The two had tentative plans to meet the week after the Thanksgiving holiday, he said.

The 1980s proved to be a defining moment for Scott, according to Rufus Williams, who became good friends with Scott during their early days with the BBF. Both grew up in the same area and received scholarships from the organization before serving on the foundation’s board.

This was also during a time when Scott escaped death. In 1988 he was shot in the abdomen after he chased men who broke into his home. He credited Mt. Sinai Hospital with saving his life. He later went to serve on the hospital’s board of directors.

“He was a West Sider and very proud of it. He was taken by a (local media) report that came out in the 80s that talked about the permanent underclass in North Lawndale, where we grew up. Rather than accepting it, what he did was spend his time, energy and money to focus on making the West Side better. The sense that it would be a permanent underclass was a true definition of hopelessness. If there was anything he felt about the West Side, it was that there was always hope. That moved him to get a lot done in the community,” said Williams about his two-decades-long friendship with Scott.

Williams recalled at time when they both served on the board of the BBF. He hadn't known Scott well at the time, but a visit from Scott changed that.

“After I became president of the organization, I remember Michael calling me and coming to my office. He said to me that he was proud I moved up to that level and whatever he could do to help, he would be there for me. It was unsolicited and from that moment we became very good friends,” he said.

As much as Scott always seemed to have on his plate, he always managed to take out “precious” time for his friends, Williams said.

“Michael was extraordinarily busy and always moving fast. He was always working to get a lot done in a short period of time. So whatever or whoever it was that he took time out to spend with them, it was precious time. I think those of us who really did know him, know we had a true and sincere friend who we could call on for anything. I think that’s what makes the enormity of this loss that much more harder to bear,” said Williams.

Williams succeeded Scott as BOE president in 2006. Scott had been appointed a second time as president, that time by Daley. During that term, the school district’s controversial Renaissance 2010 program was launched.

“There’s no one who gave of himself to public service, as much and for as long, as Michael has. He wasn’t compensated for the work he’s done; he did it out of the goodness of his heart,” said Williams.

During Scott’s second term at the helm of the school board, Kiratiana Freelon, former journalist and colleague at Chicago 2016, recalled his consistent demeanor when he presided over the monthly school board meetings.

“When I saw the way he was able to appease both angry parents and school officials, I thought, ‘Is this the next Black mayor of Chicago?’ But then I realized he had a specific role in Chicago politics that he was extremely good at,” said Freelon.

Many aldermen, including Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Leslie Hairston (5th) and Freddrenna Lyle (6th), who learned about Scott’s death Monday morning, summed it up in one word: stunned

Herman Brewer, acting president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League said Scott was a “fearless fighter for quality education” and a strong supporter of the league’s work to “economically empower Chicago's African American workforce and business community.”

A memorial service is pending.