William S.Scarborough
*This date in 1852 marks the birth of William Sander Scarborough. He was a Black scholar and University President.
William Scarborough was born in Macon, Georgia. He studied with a free Black family and white neighbors as a child, learning carpentry and shoe making. He was emancipated during the American Civil War, entered Atlanta University in 1869, and then went to Oberlin College for his Master's degree. He taught for a time amidst the Jim Crow Laws in the South.
The bitter experience and many hardships took their toll; he left to teach Latin and Greek at Wilberforce University. In 1908, he became President, a position he held for twelve years. 1921, American President Harding appointed him to a post in the Department of Agriculture, which he held until Harding died in 1924. William Sander Scarborough died on September 9, 1926.
Africana The Encyclopedia of the African and
African American Experience
Editors: Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Copyright 1999
ISBN 0-465-0071-1
