Georgia Congressman David Albert Scott, a veteran Democrat and the first Black Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has died in Washington DC at the age of 80. His office confirmed the news on Wednesday, 22 April 2026, stating that his passing was 'unexpected'.
The announcement has stunned colleagues on Capitol Hill, as Scott had been present and active just 24 hours earlier, casting what would be his final vote on the House floor.
While the specific cause of death has not been released, his passing follows years of persistent health challenges, including significant back issues and leg surgery in 2022.
Scott's journey from the segregated tobacco fields of South Carolina to the highest echelons of federal power remains a definitive story of the American South.
As news of the Georgia Congressman's death spread, leaders from both parties are reflecting on a legacy defined by agricultural reform and an unwavering commitment to historically Black land-grant colleges.
David Scott's journey ran from segregated fields to the corridors of Congress. Born on 27 June 1945 in the rural town of Aynor, South Carolina, he spent part of his childhood on a family farm and later described himself as having 'cropped the tobacco, picked the cotton, ploughed the fields, fed the hogs, milked the cows.'
His parents, Mamie Polite Scott and Albert James Scott, moved frequently for work. At five, David was sent to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to live with his paternal grandparents. At 10, he returned to South Carolina to stay with his maternal grandmother on the farm, before rejoining his parents in Scarsdale, New York, where they worked as in‑home staff for a wealthy family. He later said those years taught him how to move between worlds and 'get along with people who don't look like me.'
As a teenager, the family relocated to Daytona Beach, Florida, where his father opened a rubbish‑collection business and put his son to work. Scott graduated from high school in 1963 and went on to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee on a cluster of academic scholarships, earning a BA in English and speech in 1967. Summer breaks took him to Washington, D.C., as a management intern in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Labour for Labour‑Management Relations, his first taste of federal bureaucracy.
Scott then won a place at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed an MBA with honours in 1969. That same year, he married Alfredia Aaron, the youngest sister of baseball great Hank Aaron. The newlyweds settled in Atlanta, which would become both his home and his political base.
Before holding office, Scott tried his hand in business and the arts. In the early 1970s, he founded an advertising firm, Dayn‑Mark, and created and performed Langston!, a Georgia PBS production about poet Langston Hughes. He soon moved closer to power, advising then‑Georgia governor Jimmy Carter on revenue policy – an experience he later said had 'a tremendous impact' on his life and career – and working on Andrew Young's congressional campaign in 1972.
Source: International Business Times UK
