Cleveland Sellers

Cleveland "Cleve" Sellers Jr. (born November 8, 1944) is an American educator and civil rights activist. During the Civil Rights Movement, he helped lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was the only person convicted and jailed for events at the Orangeburg Massacre, a 1968 civil rights protest in which three students were killed by state troopers. Sellers' conviction and the acquittal of the other nine defendants were believed to be motivated by racism. He received a full pardon 25 years after the incident.

Sellers is the former Director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. He served as president of Voorhees College, a historically black college in South Carolina, from 2008 to 2015.

Early life Sellers was born in Denmark, South Carolina, to Cleveland Sellers (Sr.) and Pauline Sellers. Denmark was a town of mostly black residents, so much so, that as a child, Sellers was often blind to the privilege of whites. He said, "as far as I was concerned, white people didn't constitute a threat or deterrent to anything I wanted to be or accomplish." In the late 1940s, under the segregated South Carolina school system, the county arranged for black children to go to what was then called the Voorhees School and Junior College, which was founded by Elizabeth Evelyn Wright. Sellers began attending Voorhees when he was three and served as its mascot. He remained at the school through 12th grade, graduating in 1962.

During childhood, Sellers had a close relationship with his parents, especially his mother. He admired her care for the community and said he grew up "under her wing." He was active in the Boy Scouts of America and went to the 1960 National Scout jamboree in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His family were members of the St. Philip's Episcopal Chapel, also located on the Voorhees College campus.

When Sellers later traced his awakening to the civil rights struggle, he mentioned being shaken deeply at age ten by the murder of Emmett Till: "I couldn't see a difference between the two of us."

Civil rights activism In 1962, Sellers enrolled in Howard University. After the 1960 protests, his father had forbidden him from jeopardizing himself by engaging in further radical action. Nevertheless, Sellers joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) where he met Stokely Carmichael, who inspired Sellers as he was a like-minded student and prominent in the campus movement. Still, many white Americans saw black power as an ideology advocating black superiority. By 1967, it had a largely negative reputation in the country.

In 1967, Sellers graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal studies. He then returned to South Carolina, feeling emotionally drained from his time with SNCC.

Orangeburg Massacre

On February 8, 1968, approximately 200 protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University (in the city of Orangeburg) to protest the de facto segregation of the All Star Bowling Lane. Now called All-Star Triangle Bowl, it was a bowling alley on Russell Street, owned by local businessman Harry K. Floyd.

The ensuing trial, billed as the first federal trial of police officers for using excessive force at a campus protest, led to the acquittal of all nine defendants. Authorities tried to build a case against Sellers claiming he was the instigator. It's believed that Sellers was legally targeted in the initiation of the massacre, having been known as a staunch civil rights advocate and former SNCC leader. Some suggested that he may also have been the target of an assassination plot during the massacre, although this is factually unfounded. The South Carolina Board of Probation, Paroles and Pardons would grant his pardon in a unanimous vote.

In 1989, Seller's parents were aging and he and his family moved back to Denmark, South Carolina, to be with them. In 2008, Sellers was selected the eighth president of Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina, where he had graduated from high school. In September 2015, Sellers reluctantly stepped down as president because of a heart condition. During his tenure, he helped increase enrollment at the historically black college.

Sellers has two sons and a daughter. His younger son is former South Carolina state Rep. Bakari T. Sellers (born September 18, 1984). At the age of 22, B. T. Sellers was one of the youngest state lawmakers in the United States when he was first elected in November 2006.