William Sanders Scarborough

William S. Scarborough
Scarborough in 1887
President of Wilberforce University
In office 1908–1920
Preceded by	Joshua H. Jones
Succeeded by	John A. Gregg
Personal details
Born	William Sanders Scarborough (1852-02-16)February 16, 1852 Macon, Georgia, United States
Died	September 9, 1926(1926-09-09) (aged 74)
Citizenship	United States of America
Education	Lewis High School
Alma mater	Atlanta University Oberlin College
Occupation	professor

William Sanders Scarborough (February 16, 1852 – September 9, 1926) is generally thought to be the first African American classical scholar. Born into slavery, Scarborough served as president of Wilberforce University between 1908 and 1920. He wrote a popular university textbook in Classical Greek that was widely used in the 19th century.

Scarborough was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1852 to Jesse and Frances Scarborough a free railway employee and an enslaved mother. His father had been freed in about 1846, but remained in Georgia to be with his mother. He inherited his mother's status. Despite prohibitions against educating slaves, he was educated surreptitiously and had mastered the three R's, geography, and grammar by the age of 10. He became an apprentice shoemaker and served as the secretary of a prominent black association at an early age due to his level of education.

After the end of the American Civil War, he was able to complete his education at Lewis High School in Macon before attending Atlanta University in 1869 for two years before enrolling at Oberlin College. Scarborough completed his degree at Oberlin in 1875.

Having graduated from college, Scarborough returned as a teacher in classical languages to Lewis High School, where he met his future wife Sarah Bierce, who was the principal. Arsonists torched the Lewis High School in 1876, and the local fire brigade let it burn to the ground. Scarborough briefly became principal of the Payne Institute in Cokesbury, South Carolina, but found the racial environment in South Carolina even less hospitable than in Georgia. He then returned to Oberlin to complete a master's degree.

Scarborough became a professor in the classical department at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1877. He married the white divorcée Bierce, who had been a missionary in 1881 and also became a teacher at Wilberforce. Professor Scarborough published a popular Classical Greek textbook, First Lessons in Greek, in 1881 and became the first postmaster in Wilberforce in the same year. A second book, Birds of Aristophanes, followed in 1886.