When Bakari Sellers told his parents he would run for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives, "they said, 'Why would you want to do that?'"

"I think I can create a little change, ruffle a couple of feathers, bring a little excitement" into politics, he said Tuesday in a speech to the Rotary Club of Orangeburg.

He has already started doing that, first by defeating longtime incumbent Rep. Thomas Rhoad in the Democratic Party primary for the House District 90 seat representing Bamberg County and portions of Orangeburg and Barnwell counties.

Sellers has no Republican opponent or announced write-in challenger in the November general election. If elected, he will be the youngest legislator in the House.

Sellers believes not only that everyone in the state should have access to public education and basic health care, but that the state has the means to provide it.

"That may be my being 21 and naive," he added, but he intends to try. It's all about "bringing change" and "trying to make this state the state that it can be," he said.

"Resources seems to be the key tag word," he said. Sellers says a quick way to start raising money would be to increase the state's cigarette tax rate -- one of the lowest in the nation -- to the national average, raising about $250 million for health care and education.

Sellers accepts Thomas Friedman's hypothesis in "The World Is Flat" that Americans are competing for jobs in the global economy with people in Tokyo, Beijing and elsewhere.

That may not be such a problem for graduates of high-performing schools in certain areas of the state, but what about the rest, he asked.

"If we have fundamental inequalities (among schools) in South Carolina, how are we going to compete" in the global economy, he asked.

Sellers said the state should not get money for low-performing schools by taking it away from high-performing public schools.

"You can never bring the top down to raise the bottom," he said.

Sellers said he is focused on finding "new resources" for public education.

Higher taxes are not the answer because "We're already taxed to death in this state," he said. Rather, he'd be open to shifting some state educational lottery revenues from higher education to K-12.

Sellers acknowledged that his remarks were short on details and long on vision, specifically his desire to make a difference, even if it involves some personal sacrifice.

He said his father, Cleveland Sellers, used to live by the notion that "if the door to opportunities isn't open, kick it down."

The elder Sellers was shot in the 1968 event at then-South Carolina State College that left three students dead and became known as the Orangeburg Massacre, his son noted.

Cleveland Sellers went on to earn his doctorate and today is a professor and director of the African-American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina.

"He has seen some changes, and that makes him feel his life meant something," Bakari Sellers said.

Sellers is a 2001 graduate of Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School and a 2005 graduate of Morehouse College. He is a second-year law student.

The invitation for him to speak came during the Rotary Club's "New Generations Month," highlighting young people in the community.

Several audience members expressed support for a voucher system in which state funding would follow the child and schools would compete in a "free market" environment.

Sellers said school choice would benefit only those families that have the resources to take advantage of it, such as transportation and additional tuition costs.

He expressed concern over the Legislature's decision earlier this year to support public education with sales tax revenues instead of property tax revenues.

He said higher sales taxes hurt small retailers, particularly in smaller towns. And "what happens if we have a hurricane or an economic depression" and sales activity slows down, he asked.

While an advocate of public schools and of higher pay to attract the best teachers, Sellers said he supports reforming public education and requiring teacher accountability.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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