The Works of William Sanders Scarborough: Black Classicist and Race Leader (The Collected Black Writings Series)

The first professional classicist of African American descent, William Sanders Scarborough rose from slavery to become president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Excelling at Latin and Greek, he crossed the color line both socially and intellectually with his entry into a field of study commonly seen as elitist and dominated by white men. Although unknown to classicists today, Scarborough had a distinguished career in the field and held membership in many learned societies and had an active publication record. His life as an engaged intellectual, public citizen, and concerned educator was admired and emulated by W. E. B. Du Bois. This collection, which spans a half a century from the end of Reconstruction through the vagaries of World War I and the rise of Jim Crow, gives us window we have not had before into the challenges and ambiguities of this period. As a committed intellectual, concerned educator and loyal citizen, he served as an ambassador to and for his race to several generations of people both in the U.S and abroad. In Scarborough's writings we have a portrait of a man whose struggle for physical and intellectual freedom can inform us all. "The first professional classicist of African-American descent has been long overlooked in modern analyses concerning the education and the uplift of black Americans. For years the discourse has been presented as a debate carried on almost bilaterally between W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Now restored to us through Michele Valerie Ronnick's collection of his published works, we can learn how this contemporary of Washington and precursor to Du Bois understood the African American struggle through his extensive political writings." "Born a slave in Macon, Georgia, and rising to become president of Wilberforce University in Ohio, his accomplishments directly challenged those who maintained ideas about the intellectual inferiority of his race. Scarborough believed passionately that classical education was a critical component of African American advancement." "This volume is the first collection of Scarborough's published writings, introduced by classicist Michele Valerie Ronnick. Compiling Scarborough's academic work in addition to his writings on matters ranging from the education of blacks to politics, policy issues, travel narratives, and even black farming, the collection includes pieces of journalism, speeches, and book reviews that reveal a man who defied the odds of his time by his passionate commitment to the pursuit of knowledge."--book jacket

The first professional classicist of African American descent, William Sanders Scarborough rose from slavery to become president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Excelling at Latin and Greek, he crossed the color line both socially and intellectually with his entry into a field of study commonly seen as elitist and dominated by white men. Although unknown to classicists today, Scarborough had a distinguished career in the field and held membership in many learned societies and had an active publication record. His life as an engaged intellectual, public citizen, and concerned educator was admired and emulated by W. E. B. Du Bois.

This collection, which spans a half a century from the end of Reconstruction through the vagaries of World War I and the rise of Jim Crow, gives us window we have not had before into the challenges and ambiguities of this period. As a committed intellectual, concerned educator and loyal citizen, he served as an ambassador to and for his race to several generations of people both in the U.S and abroad. In Scarborough's writings we have a portrait of a man whose struggle for physical and intellectual freedom can inform us all.