Making Space in an Unimaginable Place: The Legacy of Jeremiah Burke Sanderson and the Elk Street Colored School

• In Event: Race, Educational Access, and Resistance in the 19th Century

Abstract

The history of Jeremiah Burke Sanderson, the first Black San Francisco public school teacher, generatively expands the canon of Black education history westward and unearths the hidden script of Black education in California. Primarily drawing upon the archives from the New Bedford Society and the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, this paper aims to reinvigorate the history of Rev. Sanderson’s educational advocacy through critical archival, narrative, and discourse analysis via written speeches, correspondence, and personal notes. Preliminary findings illuminate the hostile racial politics of the time in 18th century California and chronicle Sanderson’s poignant rebuff given his skilled capacity building, progressively keen educational ideologies, and access to insurgent networks.

Author

• Darion A. Wallace, Stanford University