Lottie B. Scott (born November 5, 1936) is an American civic leader and civil rights advocate who is a past president and co-founder of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

branch in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Life and education

Eldest of eight children, Scott was born to Joseph Bell Jr. and Estelle Stone Bell in 1936. Raised in poverty on a farm in Longtown,

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

, she grew up under the South's

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

and experienced segregation and racial discrimination. Leaving an unhappy marriage, she followed the example of her father and brother and moved with her son to Norwich, Connecticut, in 1957. Struggling to find employment as a single African American woman, she worked initially at a shoe factory and a hotel and then as a clerical typist at

Norwich State Hospital The Norwich State Hospital, originally established as Norwich State Hospital for the Insane and later shortened to Norwich Hospital, was a psychiatric hospital that is located in Preston and Norwich, Connecticut. It opened its doors in Octobe ...

. Circa 1970 she became a community resource worker for the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. She retired as a regional manager 22 years later in 1992. While working full-time at the human rights commission, Scott earned an associate degree at Three Rivers Community College and went on to earn a Bachelor of General Studies degree from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

in 1986.

Public service

Scott was a founding member of the Norwich Branch of the

in 1963; by the 1970s, she was president. She established a NAACP job bank program in 1973, helping hundreds of African American residents gain employment. Scott's leadership was instrumental in improving race relations at the Norwich Free Academy during the 1970s. Concurrent with her civil rights advocacy, she was a founding member of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union. Scott was a past president and founding member of the Norwich Arts Center. She is a lifetime member of the NAACP and the Norwich Historical Society and a member of the

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, profe ...

of Norwich for more than 20 years. She has served on several city commissions, including the City of Norwich Ellis Walter Ruley Committee, the Norwich Sachem Fund, and the Norwich Disabilities Committee. In addition, Scott has served on numerous local nonprofit boards, chairing the board of

Backus Hospital The William W. Backus Hospital is a 213-bed, not-for-profit, acute care community hospital in Norwich, Connecticut. Backus Hospital provides inpatient care for approximately 11,000 patients each year, and has more than 400,000 outpatient visits. T ...

and serving on ''The Bulletin'' newspaper's diversity committee and the Otis Library's board of directors.

Awards

Scott has received numerous awards and honors. She received the University of Connecticut's Presidential Humanitarian Award, the NAACP Connecticut State Conference's W.E.B. Du Bois Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000, and the Eastern Chamber of Commerce's Citizen of the Year Award in 1994. In 2017, Scott received the Willard M. McRae Community Diversity Award from the Liberty Bank Foundation and a Humanitarian ACE (Arts, Community and Excellence) Award from Writer's Block Ink. In 2013, she was the inaugural recipient of the eponymous Lottie B. Scott Community Diversity Award, issued by the Rotary Club of Norwich. She has been honored as a Trailblazer by the New London National Council of Negro Women and received the Pioneer Award from the Robertsine Duncan Youth Council. In 2014, the Norwich Arts Center branded its inaugural jazz concert series "Miss Lottie's Jazz Cafe." US Senator

Chris Dodd Christopher John Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011. Dodd is the longest-serving senator in Connecticut's history. H ...

paid tribute to Scott in an address on the United States Senate floor on April 21, 1994. In his remarks, Dodd recognized her as "a Connecticut treasure" who "helped shape the social, cultural, and political agenda of an entire community." Scott's home is a stop on Norwich's Freedom Trail.

Legacy

In 2018 Scott self-published her memoir ''Deep South''–''Deep North: A Family’s Journey'', an account of her childhood experiences with poverty and racism and of her family's journey in the Great Migration. In 2021, she donated her papers to the UConn Library's Archives and Special Collections. Her collection includes hundreds of binders, scrapbooks, letters, photos, clippings, and meeting minutes dating from the 1960s through the early 2010s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Lottie B. 1936 births Living people People from Fairfield County, South Carolina People from Norwich, Connecticut University of Connecticut alumni NAACP activists Activists from Connecticut Activists from South Carolina African-American activists 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women