Willie Joe Sanders had five children of his own to care for, but he also acted as a father figure for countless UF medical students.
Sanders, 81, one of UF’s first black students and the first black faculty member at the UF College of Medicine, died Saturday after losing a battle with cancer.
Many people described Sanders as an “institution within an institution” because of the legacy he left.
Before coming to UF, he attended the Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, a historically black university in Virginia.
He served in the Navy and the Army. After returning from Korea in 1957, he got a job as a lab technician at UF’s Health Science Center.
Sanders applied to UF in 1959 — before integration — and was told he’d need a court order to be accepted.
As a technician, he studied on his own time, and in 1962, when the school finally integrated, he was accepted as one of UF’s first six black undergraduates and studied mathematics. He graduated in 1970.
In 1968, he became the first black faculty member at the UF College of Medicine. He taught anatomy to first-year medical and dental students.
His daughter Paula Pringle said Sanders was an important role model for the few Black enrolled at the College of Medicine. He helped them with schoolwork and also helped them adjust to life at a predominantly white school.
He retired from UF in 1989, but soon grew bored without a job.
“My father wasn’t a man to sit still and let moss grow on his seat,” Pringle said.
Sanders started teaching again at Florida A&M University’s School of Allied Health Sciences, and spent eight years commuting to Tallahassee from Gainesville.
After retiring from that job, Pringle said her father again became bored, so he started a pepper garden and used the peppers to make a homemade barbecue sauce.
“Tons of people wanted it,” Pringle said. “He had his own private customer base of friends he supplied the sauce to for free.”
A friend and former colleague, Tom Harris, associate vice president for administrative affairs, said Sanders was a gentle man and a gentleman who went the extra mile for his students.
“He was a father to all of them,” Harris said. “Not only to his family, but to his students.”
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Faith Missionary Baptist Church, 2905 SE 21st Ave.
Sanders will be buried at the Florida National Cemetery for veterans in Bushnell on Monday.
Visitation is scheduled at the Duncan Brothers Funeral Home, 428 NW Eighth St., on Friday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. for the public and 7:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. for his friends.
