Jeremiah Burke Sanderson


Jeremiah Burke Sanderson was a prominent African American abolitionist and civil rights in Massachusetts and California.

Early life

Jeremiah Burke Sanderson was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts on August 10, 1821. Little is known of his early life or education, beyond that he began his career in civil rights and antislavery activism at the age of 19 when he was elected to serve as the secretary for an 1840 meeting of the African American community of New Bedford that supported William Lloyd Garrison's American Antislavery Society. Sanderson's activism brought him into the circles of leading abolitionists of the day, including William Cooper Nell, with whom he formed a close lifelong friendship, and Amy Kirby Post.