William Sanders Scarborough letters received

1894-1921

William Sanders Scarborough (1854?-1926) was a renowned philologist and the President of Wilberforce University from 1908 to 1920. Scarborough was appointed professor of Latin and Greek at Wilberforce in 1876. In 1892 he was dismissed due to the prevailing sentiment that the classics had become irrelevant. Re-appointed and promoted to vice-president in 1897 Scarborough served the university until he was forced to retire in 1920. The William Sanders Scarborough letter collection consists of eight letters: from Frederick Douglass (1894); W.E.B. DuBois (1921); and Booker T. Washington (1902-1909). The letter from Douglass extends his apologies for being unable to attend commencement at Wilberforce. The two letters from DuBois relate to the second Pan-African Congress to be held in 1921 and discusses when and where the conference was to be held. The five letters from Washington are general in nature, although one seems to deal with a disagreement they had.