DR. CLEVELAND L. SELLERS, JR.
President of Voorhees College
(803) 780-1019 -
csellers@voorhees.edu
A political activist, civil-rights pioneer,
educator, and administrator, Dr. Cleveland L.
Sellers, Jr., from his youth until this present
day, has had a profound impact on American
history, life, and culture.
As a young man, Dr. Sellers aligned himself
with the veterans of the civil-rights
movement. Joining the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he traveled the
south in the 1960s urging African-Americans to
register to vote and worked as an advocate for
justice and human rights.
Dr. Sellers is a graduate of Shaw University
(B.S.), Harvard University (M.A.), and the
University of North Carolina-Greensboro (Ed.D.).
Dr. Sellers served as Director of the
African-American Studies Program at the
University of South Carolina. He also taught in
the Department of History and the
African-American Studies Program. He is a former
member of the South Carolina State Board of
Education, Second Judicial District.
Active in any community in which he resides,
Dr. Sellers is a warden at St. Philip’s
Episcopal Church in Denmark, South Carolina and
serves as president of the Denmark Recreation
Center, Inc. He also served on the board of the
Episcopal Church Foundation.
Dr. Sellers is a member of several
organizations including the South Carolina
Association of School Administrators, the
Southern Conference on Afro-American Studies,
Inc., the South Carolina Historical Society, the
Southern Historical Association, the
Organization of American Historians, and the
Kosmos Club. He was named “Who’s Who Among South
and Southeastern University Faculty,” 1996-1997.
He is the author of “The River of No Return,”
and has published articles in scholarly
journals. He has served as a historian and
consultant for several documentary films
including “ESPN’s Black Magic,” Tom Brokaw’s
“1968,” College of Charleston’s Emmy
award-winning, “Where Do We Go From Here,” and
Blackside Production’s classic, “Eyes on the
Prize.”
Dr. Sellers is a native of Denmark, South
Carolina. He and his wife, Gwendolyn, have been
married for 35 years. They have one daughter,
Nosizwe ́and two sons, Lumumba and Bakari.
