James B. Sanderlin

James Bernard Sanderlin was a lawyer who, during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, used litigation to fight for equality and against discrimination in Pinellas County, Florida. During this time Sanderlin was one of only five African American attorneys who practiced in racially divided St. Petersburg, Florida. Sanderlin devoted his career to unifying blacks and whites in his community in an effort to move toward social and legal equality. While living in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1950s, Sanderlin felt compelled to move to the South to try to make a difference for minorities there. All of his life he had lived peacefully alongside whites, so it was not hard for him to envision an American society where the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision was implemented and equality was practiced and not just talked about.