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“S” is for Sellers, Cleveland Louis, Jr. (b. 1944)

“S” is for Sellers, Cleveland Louis, Jr. (b. 1944). Civil rights activist, educator. A native of Denmark, South Carolina, Sellers attended Howard University where he met student activists later associated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). From 1962 to 1967 he organized and participated in demonstrations, marches, and protests throughout the South. In February 1968 as clashes between student demonstrators and Orangeburg police escalated, Sellers advised those involved in the protests. On February 8, 1968, police and state troopers opened fire on the demonstrators, killing three and wounding twenty-seven. Sellers was indicted and convicted for inciting a riot. After his prison term, Sellers earned graduate degrees at Harvard and UNC, Greensboro. In 1990 he joined the faculty of the University of South Carolina. From 2008 to 2015 Cleveland Louis Sellers, Jr., served as president of Vorhees College.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.