Scarborough, W. S. (William Sanders), 1852-1926

William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926), African American author, educator, and lecturer, was born a slave on February 16, 1852, in Macon, Georgia. His mother Frances Gwynn Scarborough was a slave, although his father Jeremiah had been freed by his master in 1846. Despite state restrictions, W.S. Scarborough learned to read and write. In 1869 following emancipation, he entered Atlanta University and later attended Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1875 he graduated and returned to the South to teach, but soon became disillusioned and returned to Oberlin to complete a master's degree. Shortly thereafter, he became a professor of Latin and Greek at Wilberforce University. In 1881 Scarborough married Sarah Bierce, a white woman who taught at Wilberforce University from 1877-1914. He left Wilberforce in 1892 to teach at Payne Seminary in Xenia, Ohio (adjacent to the Wiberforce campus), but returned in 1897 to become vice president of the university. In 1908 Scarborough was appointed president of Wilberforce University and served until resigning his position in 1920. In 1921 he was appointed to a position in the Department of Agriculture in the United States government by President Warren G. Harding, which he held until the end of 1924. Scarborough was a prolific author and lecturer and wrote frequently on civil rights issues and black folklore. He was also a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. W.S. Scarborough died in Ohio in 1926.

Classicist, scholar, writer, editor, and president of Wilberforce University; m. Sarah C. Bierce (1881); vice-president, Wilberforce Univ. (1897); represented Wilberforce at the Universal Race Congress (1911).