Background
He was born in slavery near Winnsboro, S. C. , on the plantation of Thomas Hall, a Methodist preacher. He was the son of William and Laura Sanders.
He was born in slavery near Winnsboro, S. C. , on the plantation of Thomas Hall, a Methodist preacher. He was the son of William and Laura Sanders.
His owner permitted him to learn the letters of the alphabet, and before he became free he had learned to spell and to read.
In 1869 and 1870 attended Brainerd Institute, at Chester, where he proved so apt a pupil that after two years of study he was made a tutor in the school. By 1871 he was prepared to enter Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pa. , where in 1874 he graduated with honors.
At the age of nine years he was given his first instruction in the shoemaker's trade; he served as an apprentice for five years, making such remarkable progress that at the end of three years his master was able to collect pay for his services. In 1866 he left his master's home and set out for Chester, S. C. , taking with him only a small shoemaker's kit.
As he worked he secured tutelage from a Mr. W. B. Knox. He then became pastor of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, N. C. Here he assembled the colored Presbyterians, who until then had been worshipping in the galleries of the churches of their former owners, into the northern Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America).
Upon his return from Europe he resumed his pastorate. In 1891, he was elected president of Biddle University, of which he had been a trustee for fourteen years. His unusual executive ability and untiring interest in the expansion of the university enabled it to make rapid advancement. He continued as president of Biddle (which later became Johnson C. Smith University) until his death.
He died at the age of sixty.
Sanders became a leader in the educational world. He was elected principal of the public schools in Chester, S. C. , and in the principal of the city schools in Wilmington, N. C. This position he resigned shortly in order to go abroad to raise money for the work of the Board of Missions for Freedmen. He raised a large sum of money for the Board. In addition, he raised $6, 000 as an endowment for an African scholarship fund to prepare men at Biddle University, a Presbyterian institution at Charlotte, N. C. , for mission work in Africa. He began the publication of the Africo-American Presbyterian, which had a wide influence in building up the Presbyterian cause among the colored people. This publication he edited until his death. He was its first colored president of the Biddle University. Sanders was the first colored moderator of both the Yadkin and Cape Fear presbyteries, he served as a stated clerk in the Atlantic and Yadkin presbyteries and the Catawba Synod, and three times was delegate to meetings of the Alliance of Reformed Churches Holding the Presbyterian System - at Toronto, Liverpool, and Washington. He was many times a member of the General Assembly, where his voice was heard and given recognition.
He had strong religious attitude, forensic power, and sound logic. As a teacher of theology and church government he was well liked by his students, who called him "Zeus. "
With an extremely simple philosophy of life to guide him he commended himself each day to God and did his best in each day's work.
On Sept. 16, 1880, he married Fannie Price, and of this union nine children were born.
