Daniel Jackson Sanders was born into slavery near Winnsboro, SC. Unlike many enslaved young people, Sanders was ablet o learn the alphabet, as well as a trade — shoemaking.

After the Civil War, nineteen-year-old Sanders left home to become a shoemaker in Chester, South Carolina. John and William Knox, two white men, tutored Sanders until 1869, when he entered Brainerd Institute. He later graduated from Western Theological Seminary in 1874, with honors and prizes in Hebrew and Sanskrit.

He worked as a Presbyterian minister before resigning to raise money for the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen abroad. Upon his return in 1878, he picked back up preaching at Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington.

He served at Biddle University (now John C. Smith University) for seventeen years and was fondly called “”Zeus”” by his students.

Biddle went back to England in 1905 to serve as a delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian alliance. He died in 1906 after a life of faithful ministry, both at church, and university, and as the first Black moderator of both the Yadkin and Cape Fear presbyteries.