34 Facts About Cleveland Sellers

Cleveland Sellers 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.

Cleveland Sellers is the former Director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina.

Cleveland Sellers served as president of Voorhees College, a historically black college in South Carolina, from 2008 to 2015.

Denmark was a town of mostly black residents, so much so, that as a child, Cleveland Sellers was often blind to the privilege of whites.

Cleveland Sellers was presented with a historically correct Eagle Scout medal that would have been awarded in the 1960s at a special Eagle Scout Court of Honor at the 2010 Centennial National Scout Jamboree.

The Sellers family was religious and joined St Philip's Episcopal Church where Cleveland became enthralled with the sermons and brotherhood he was surrounded by.

The murder of Emmett Till when Cleveland Sellers was only ten years old, shook him deeply.

Also propelled by the Greensboro sit-ins, Cleveland Sellers quickly became dedicated to student-led protesting.

In 1960, in response to the Greensboro sit-ins, Cleveland Sellers organized a sit-in protest at a Denmark, South Carolina lunch counter.

Nevertheless, Cleveland Sellers became involved with the Nonviolent Action Group where he met Stokely Carmichael.

In 1964, Cleveland Sellers became involved with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

Cleveland Sellers was very spiritually disciplined and took an "oath of poverty" after joining, forsaking education, family and pleasures of student life to focus on the movement.

Cleveland Sellers was immediately assigned to Holly Springs, Mississippi, to coordinate voting registration and advocate for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

So, when Cleveland Sellers was elected program director of the SNCC the next year, he quickly took action to revise the goals of the organization.

Cleveland Sellers thought the philosophical tactics of the SNCC weren't working, and he instead wanted to implement extremely focused and achievable goals for the group.

Many group members didn't like the hard crack-down of the organization, but Cleveland Sellers believed it to be the best way to make a change.

Cleveland Sellers preached, and continues to preach, that the idea of black power was never meant to undermine white people, but simply was a concept meant to empower and celebrate the black community.

Cleveland Sellers was one of the first members of SNCC to refuse to be drafted into the US military as a protest against the Vietnam War.

Cleveland Sellers graduated with a BA degree from Shaw University in 1967.

Cleveland Sellers was back in South Carolina in hopes to finish his bachelor's degree.

Cleveland Sellers was at a friend's house when he was alerted of the chaos outside.

Cleveland Sellers was shot in the left shoulder and fell to the ground.

Authorities tried to build a case against Cleveland Sellers claiming he was the instigator.

Cleveland Sellers was the only individual imprisoned as a result of the incident.

Cleveland Sellers served seven months in prison after a conviction for inciting to riot.

Some have a theory that Cleveland Sellers was actually the target of an assassination plot during the massacre, although this is factually unfounded.

Cleveland Sellers ran unsuccessfully for office in Greensboro, North Carolina while aiding the 1984 presidential campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Cleveland Sellers earned his EdD degree in history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1987.

Cleveland Sellers served as director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina.

Cleveland Sellers focuses on the oral history of African Americans who shaped the history of South Carolina, including cultural groupings and the languages of Gullah, Creole, and Geechee.

Cleveland Sellers has studied the survival experiences of African Americans, sometimes recorded in folklore but often unrecorded.

In 2008, Cleveland Sellers was selected the 8th president of Voorhees College, where he had graduated from high school.

In September 2015, Cleveland Sellers reluctantly stepped down as president because of a heart condition.

Cleveland Sellers was one of the youngest state lawmakers in the United States when he was first elected in November 2006.