Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Allison Daniel Anders

Abstract

The focus of my study is the life of Dr. Cleveland L. Sellers, Jr. as a Black activist educator. Using oral history interviews, autobiographical, and biographical resources, alongside a thorough examination of Sellers’ (1973) published works, speeches, and archival materials, I explore how his formative experiences and his experiences as a student activist during the 1954 - 1968 Civil Rights Movement shaped his understanding of education as a tool for liberation. Sellers was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. He later became a faculty member in the History department and the chair of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. After his tenure at the University of South Carolina, Sellers later became the president of Voorhees University, a Historically Black College and University in Denmark, South Carolina.

More specifically, I examine how Sellers’ experiences as a student activist during the Civil Rights Movement shaped his understanding of education as a tool for social and political transformation. I also address the significance of education in Sellers’ life in the home with his family, in the community at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and in grade school on Voorhees University campus. My work contributes to the broader literature that exists related to the enduring struggle for racial justice, educational equity, activism, and personal sacrifice. I address his ideas of individual agency and collective action, political activism, resilience and perseverance, family and community, the intersection of faith, race and politics, the evolution of Black consciousness, and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.

Rights

© 2025, Franklin J. Gause

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