Robert Smith Sanders, M. D.

Sanders earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Vanderbilt and finished his pediatrics residency there before returning to Murfreesboro. He and his wife, Patricia, lobbied the General Assembly together for a law requiring child restraints in cars. The Child Passenger Protection Act passed in 1977, took effect in 1978, and was the first of its kind in the nation. Child traffic deaths in Tennessee fell by half, and every state followed within seven years. He ran the Rutherford County Health Department and died in 2006.

What the plaque says

Robert Smith Sanders, M. D. 1927-2006 In 1977, Murfreesboro Pediatrician, Dr. Robert Sanders and his wife Patricia, encouraged the Tennessee General Assembly to pass the nation's first law requiring child safety in automobiles. Because every state followed the lead of Dr. Sanders and the state of Tennessee, every state has enacted child passenger restraint laws causing thousands of lives to be saved. Sanders received his education from Tullahoma High School, Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University. From 1969 to 1991, Dr. Sanders served as the director of Rutherford County Health Department.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 2.9 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 25 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• Henry Horton State Park — 25 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.
• Fort Negley — 30 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.

More markers nearby

• Grantland Rice — 0.2 mi
• Forrest's Murfreesboro Raid, July 13, 1862 — 0.2 mi
• Morgan's Wedding — 0.2 mi
• Hardy Murfree — 0.3 mi