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→Post-war career
Sunday founded a successful contracting firm, which built hundreds of houses and commercial buildings throughout the city, as well as several other business and real estate investments. When Jim Crow laws forced African-American business owners out of [[downtown Pensacola]], Sunday helped establish [[Belmont-DeVilliers]] as Pensacola's primary black business district. When Pensacola's black Catholics formed [[St. Joseph Catholic Church]], Sunday provided the land for the new church.
By the time Sunday retired, he was quite wealthy; in his 1907 book “The Negro in Business,” famed black educator Booker T. Washington called Sunday "the wealthiest colored man in that section of the state," estimating Sunday's fortune at $125,000, or more than $3.4 million in 2018 dollars. Washington wrote that Sunday "is said to pay taxes on $90,000 worth of property" and "owns valuable holdings in the principal business streets of the city, and employs steadily a force of men to repair old and build new houses."<ref>Washington, Booker T. (2006). ''The Negro in Business'', p. 236. Hertel, Jenkins & Co., Chicago.</ref> In 1900, in response to a question from a reader asking whom was "the wealthiest colored man in the South," ''[[Wikipedia:The Colored American (Washington, D.C.)|The Colored American]]'' said that "in real and personal property we think John Sunday of Pensacola, Fla. is the wealthiest colored man anywhere."<ref>"Queries." The Colored American. 8 December 1900.</ref>
Among the properties once owned by Sunday includes three of the four corners at the Belmont-DeVilliers intersection as well as property now occupied by [[Pensacola City Hall]], [[M. C. Blanchard Judicial Building]], and [[L&N Passenger Depot and Express Office]].
