by Jonathan Gramling

Emanuel “Manny” Scarbrough has been a fixture in Madison’s Black community and beyond for over 50 years. Lately, Scarbrough has been receiving some awards for his service including the 2023 James C. Wright Human Rights Award and 2024 100 Black Men, Inc. Mentor of the Year, a national award.

But for Scarbrough, it’s never been about the recognition or honors. It has clearly been about the youth in the community and their future. He has lived a lifetime of service beginning with his childhood in Eutaw, Alabama.

“In the Black community, there are three places where a kid can develop social skills,” Scarbrough said. “The first place is in the family. The next place is at the church. And the third place is in the schools. What happened was I was blessed to have a family by which we could do that. I was also blessed with my father being the youngest elder in the Presbyterian church. He was a blessing to all of the kids. And I saw that. I was really involved like the other kids were.”

It was in his high school that Scarbrough learned to be engaged.

“Since I could not play sports anymore because I had used to jump off a cliff and pole vault and hurt my hip, I was the manager for the football and basketball teams,” Scarbrough said. “We also had the New Farmers of America. This is what they call Black farmers. Here you see Future Farmers of America. I don’t know why you had to divide the two. What happened was my school was associated so that we were the center for the ninth district. I was the president of the New Farmers of America in my school. That meant I was the president of the Ninth Confederation. From there, I was nominated and elected vice-president of the state organization. In the meantime, we had judging contests of all of the things that farmers do. The team from my school, Greene County Training School, won the state of Alabama judging contest. We went to the national in Atlanta.’

Scarbrough went on to study biology and chemistry at Alabama A&M and then went on to study at Tuskegee. And that is where he made his Madison connection.

“I studied with Dr. Henderson,” Scarbrough said. “He was one of the first Black students at UW-Madison. He graduated with a doctorate degree in biochemistry and botany. I knew about it. Our Dr. Skogg was the premier scientist in the area of plant physiology and plant biochemistry. So I came to study with Dr. Skogg. That’s how I got here in September of 1967.”

While Scarbrough remained at UW-Madison as a research scientist until he retired in 1999. But people who knew Scarbrough outside of the university really weren’t aware that he was a scientist as much as he was a community activist. While he was at UW-Madison, he got involved in a summer program at Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center in the early 1970s.

“It was Hazel Symonette, three other people from the university and I,” Scarbrough recalled. “When we got there, most of these young men had been in Wales because of something that had happened. When we got there, we were working with the kids mentoring them. And all of a sudden, the kids said, ‘When are you going to go get us some beer?’ We looked at them and said, ‘That’s not happening.’ They said, ‘The other people who worked here did it.’ We said, ‘That’s not happening.’ And so they started rebelling. We said, ‘We’re going to talk to your mommas and daddies.’ We had their addresses and got in the car. The kids got in the street and followed us around to the houses. We told the parents who we were and what we we're