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DENMARK – “I have enjoyed the journey to this pinnacle. It is a pinnacle in my life.”
As a youngster growing up at Voorhees High School, Dr. Cleveland Sellers always looked up to college presidents.
Now, he is one.
Sellers began his tenure as Voorhees College’s eighth president on June 16.
Sellers’ remarkable trek to this pinnacle has been one of many paths, some of which were anything but clear and smooth.
The path started in the late 1950s in Denmark, where Sellers became enamored with educating himself and serving his community as a youth. It’s also where he first participated in the civil rights movement by taking part in protesting a segregated pharmacy.
That experience at Voorhees High School become the transformational piece in the mosaic of Sellers’ life.
“That kind of legacy is part of who I became. I knew at some point I wanted to become an educator,” he said.
Now, Sellers wants to bring that same brand of experience to Voorhees students.
“I want this to be a student-centered, student-friendly college,” Sellers said.
He says the history of Voorhees has some valuable lessons for students, such as perseverance, determination and service.
Sellers’ own history could be a prime example.
After graduating from Voorhees High School, he took a break from his education at Howard University to become intimately involved in the cause of his life, civil rights.
From Selma to the March on Washington, Sellers was there fighting for justice and equality. It was in Orangeburg, however, where Sellers would make his own mark on the movement.
It was a mark that came at a high price.
He was the only person ever convicted of a crime in connection with the events of 1968 that came to be known as the Orangeburg Massacre. He was also wounded during the event, which claimed the lives of three students when state troopers fired into a crowd of demonstrators.
Before being pardoned by Gov. Carroll Campbell in 1993, Sellers was forced to flee the state for many years. Despite his education, Sellers had trouble obtaining a job even outside the state because of his conviction. He settled down in Greensboro, N.C., where he completed his doctorate. He was finally given a chance to work in Greensboro as a public administrator.
“That’s what opened my opportunities ... it was the thing that began to change their perception on whatever the people of Greensboro had about the Orangeburg Massacre,” he said.
In the late 1980s, his mother and father were both diagnosed with cancer. Sellers’ conviction proved be an impossible barrier to finding a job in South Carolina to take care of his ailing parents.
That forced him to commute on weekends from Greensboro to Denmark to check on his parents. His mother and father died just months apart in the early 1990s.
Sellers then decided to come back to South Carolina. “I always said I was going to come back. ... I came back on faith.”
His wife, Gwendolyn, and three children all agreed to move to Orangeburg. His youngest son, Bakari, was in kindergarten at the time. He is now a state representative.
Sellers made a living by renting out some properties he inherited from his father until he was pardoned.
Sellers was finally able to apply for a job that was close to his heart in higher education in 1993.
He was named a visiting professor at the University of South Carolina, where he later rose through the ranks and became the director of African-American Studies.
At USC, he also was a mentor to young students by guiding them down the right path toward success, even when one of those students was already on that path.
Sellers discussed his relationship with former USC basketball star Renaldo Balkman, who left college early and now plays for the New York Knicks in the NBA.
“You have to go back to college and get your degree,” he told Balkman after he declared for the NBA draft in 2006. Even with the millions Balkman was going to make in the NBA, Sellers told him that having a college degree would set an example for his children.
As Balkman settled into fatherhood, he finally agreed with Sellers’ sage advice and began looking at taking courses in the off-season.
Sellers plans to bring that same brand of wisdom to students at Voorhees, the place where his odyssey in civil rights and education began.
He said there is a sense of excitement in Denmark and Bamberg County since he has been named president at Voorhees. He desires to bring the same sense of hope and optimism there that was ingrained in him as a youth.
“It’s an opportunity to take Voorhees from being an unknown to a valuable educational asset in the state,” Sellers said.
He acknowledged he now is a member of an exclusive group of African-American college presidents in the state.
He cited the late Dr. M. Maceo Nance, the former president of South Carolina State University, as a friend, supporter and inspiration, as well as Claflin University President Dr. Henry Tisdale, among others.
“It’s a win-win all around. ... I relish and take that responsibility with a tremendous amount of honesty and integrity. I plan to be successful in those things I’ve outlined for the institution. It also elevates me to a class of black educators that I don’t want to let down. They’ve raised the bar real high.”
n T&D Staff Writer Lee Tant can be reached at ltant@timesanddemocrat.com and 803-534-1060. Comment on this and other stories at www.TheTandD.com.