The upcoming TV pilot, “From Darkness to Light,” is a powerful story of resilience, hope and human connection. At its heart is the remarkable journey of a black woman overcoming adversity through the mentorship of a white man. 

“Their bond not only helps her rebuild her life but also underscores the power of unity and understanding in breaking barriers of race, prejudice, and isolation,” reads the promo for the show about Lincoln County native Kolean Sanders.

Sanders was born and raised in Caseyville, later relocating to Brookhaven. The founder of The Geneva Foundation (named for her mother) now lives in Clinton, and is also a speaker, songwriter and evangelist. 

When filmmaker Maximus Wright first entered her office years ago to ask for her investment in a video project, she felt God was telling her to tell him he would be not just a video-maker, but a film-maker. Now, with several projects under his belt, the founder of the Jackson Film Festival is back with Sanders, telling her story from behind the lens. 

Sanders was the oldest daughter of nine children. Her mother began preparing her at a young age to take care of her siblings. Little Kolean did not understand this was because her mother knew she was dying. She taught her how to cook, take care of things around the house, and be wary for sexual predators, some that may be relatives.

When her mother died in the hospital, Sanders was already stepping into shoes she was determined to fill as best as she could. 

“My baby brother, Larry, was just one or two years old, and Mama used to rock him to sleep on the porch, so that’s what I did,” she said. “I knew I’d have to rock him to sleep each night.”

Not long after her mother died, her warnings were heard and seen loud and clear — a sexual predator would come into the home and abuse Sanders, then only 14 years old. 

When the abuse continued and no one came to her rescue, Sanders made a hard decision.

“If this is how life is going to be, I don’t want life,” she told herself. 

She went to a gravel pit and climbed up as high as she could on a mound, and prayed. She’d been told taking your own life would send you to hell, but she could not think of another way. She asked God for forgiveness, then dropped backward off the mound. She fell from a height more than enough to accomplish her goal, but God had intervened — someone had thrown mattresses into the pit, and that’s where she landed. 

Even landing on a softer surface than rock, she should have been injured, but she was not. So she got up, walked home, picked some greens from the garden, and started on dinner for her siblings. 

“That night I had a spiritual awakening,” she said. “I saw a light in the corner and voice said ‘O ye of little faith’ two times, and ‘John 14:14.’ It’s the verse that says to ask anything in Jesus’ name and believe. So I prayed for Him to take away just enough pain to let me know You are with me and I’m OK.”

Years passed, and Sanders married a military veteran, and when that marriage ended in divorce, she was on her own with her daughter, living in a Brookhaven apartment on Caleb Drive with no furniture and no electricity. The maintenance man had compassion on her, and gave her a three-legged table that he made a fourth leg for from an old broomstick. 

She was eventually able to buy a burgundy suede couch on monthly payments, but after three months she was told someone had paid it off for her. 

“Then I started to see the kindness of God,” Sanders said, and it was all around her in people God put in her path.

“I would never change anything  that happened to me — even the abuse, because at least it protected my siblings — I am who I am today because of all of that.”

In the late 1980s, she moved to Vicksburg and began working in insurance and outperformed everyone at the agency of Joe Price, a white man who had reached out to her, “stayed after me, affirmed me and coached me to be a salesperson.”

“My family, community, and church had all failed me,” Sanders said. “I had no trust for anyone, especially a man. But he totally changed my life. My goal is always to be that person Joe Price was to me.”

Sanders refuses to let her past dictate her future, and that’s the message that drives “From Darkness to Light.” The summary on her website says the project “highlights the strength of the human spirit, the importance of allyship, and the profound impact of mentorship in transforming lives. It also carries a message of racial harmony and shared humanity.”

Radiating peace and kindness as she interacts with anyone she thinks she can help, Sanders has a goal of helping others.

“I have to be an asset and never a liability to another person,” she said. “I have to be the very best I can be and help others to be the best they can be, because that’s what was given to me.”