Scott made national headlines in 1946, when he ran for public office in Georgia; he was arrested and institutionalized to force an end to his campaign.

[14][15] Fearing that he might become the first black elected official in Georgia since Reconstruction,[16] his white opponents and others (including his brother, editor Cornelius A. Scott) pressured him to withdraw as a candidate.

[22][23] Aurelius Scott reacted violently to the arrest,[24] and was institutionalized at a mental hospital in Nashville, Tennessee,[25] effectively ending his campaign.

[29] "He has done his people great harm," declared the editors of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "apparently out of a desire, by no means confined to the Negro race, for publicity, or notoriety.

[31] Scott married fellow professor Mazie O. Tyson in 1928;[32] they ran a summer camp together in Ohio, and were on the faculty together at Bethune-Cookman College,[7] before they separated in the 1930s.