We had ignited that kind of energy, but when Dean Bryce took that election from me, I was just sad. My dad suggested I call Julian Bond, who was then chair of the board at Morehouse. I believed we had a few things in common. Julian’s father was a widely respected educator and college president. We both grew up around legends. There are childhood photos of me in the arms of well-known American groundbreakers, and there are extraordinary pictures of Julian Bond in the arms of the great Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. And if anyone knew about early political setbacks, it was Uncle Julian.
So I called Julian Bond, pacing back and forth and crying, telling him what had happened. In a soothing voice, he comforted me, saying, “It’s all going to work.” When he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 at the age of twenty-six, his colleagues refused to seat him because he wouldn’t apologize for anti-Vietnam sentiments that fellow SNCC members had recently made. In response, Martin Luther King Jr. openly criticized the House members and led a protest to the statehouse.
The US Supreme Court sided with Uncle Julian, who’d eventually serve four terms in the Georgia House and ten more years in the Senate. He also became chairman of the NAACP and founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. But in 1985, he lost a race for Atlanta’s Fifth District congressional seat, a seat he helped to create. Worst of all, he lost it to friend and civil rights comrade John Lewis, who was a city councilman at the time. The contest turned them into foes, with Lewis demanding that Uncle Julian take a drug test, which he refused because he said it was an invasion of privacy. If Lewis had run a more straightforward campaign, I believe, the US congressman from that district probably would have been Julian Bond rather than John Lewis.
Back in my apartment, a friend of mine named Lodriguez Murray, who now works for the United Negro College Fund, watched me pacing back and forth. After I hung up with Uncle Julian, Lodriguez pulled me aside and said, “You’re just going to have to beat them all again.”
The election was set for a week later, and I won the general election once again, which went into another runoff, which I also won, though I had to persuade everybody who voted for me to vote for me for a fourth time! This struggle taught me many lessons and prepared me for the future. I learned at an early age that there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. I also learned to keep grinding. My parents taught me that you have to run faster, jump higher, and work harder—and so I did.
Years later, Jarrod reflected on why I continued to win the SGA spot despite all the setbacks. “Your campaign team was your homeboys—it was us,” he said. “And just by the virtue of your personality, you knew guys from every walk of life, and I think ultimately that’s why people were drawn to you. I think that was your first real foray into electoral politics.”
That summer after the SGA win, we accomplished some important things both on and off campus. Off campus, we conducted HIV and AIDS testing in Atlanta, where instances of HIV are extremely high. On campus, I turned my attention to the women who worked in the cafeteria. During my junior and senior years, I was not on a meal plan because I couldn’t afford one. The only reason I ate at all was because the cafeteria ladies gave me free food. When we discovered that these women were making minimum wage, we fought diligently and successfully with the administration to get them higher wages. I owed them that much. We also promoted a homecoming concert featuring the rapper Lil Wayne.
During my senior year, I roomed again with Jarrod, who was now the president of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, which placed him on the top of the social ladder at school. And of course I was the SGA president. These were two of the highest profile roles on campus, and they were being held by two Low Country boys. Jarrod was headed to graduate school at New York University, and then the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and I decided to go to law school. I knew that to get into law school I had to have at least three of four things: (1) a very high grade point average, which I didn’t have; (2) a great résumé; (3) a great story (personal statement); and (4) excellent references. I applied to the law school at the University of South Carolina and was accepted, but I also had another goal I needed to tend to.
* * *
After I graduated from Morehouse College in May 2005, when I was twenty, I went back home to live with my parents for the summer and to prepare for law school, which would start that August. But of course I had this master plan in my head, one that I had started drawing up that summer in Congressman Clyburn’s office with Jarrod. So in June 2005, I made the decision to run in the next Democratic Party primary against Thomas Rhoad for South Carolina’s House of Representatives, and it was time to tell my parents about my plans. I sauntered down the steps, very confident in what I was about to say.
In our kitchen, we have a cook island to the right and a wet bar to the left. I stood between the wet bar and the island. My mom, on one of her rare cooking days, was fixing spaghetti, and my dad was going through the newspapers. Being a millennial, I couldn’t then, and can’t now, understand for the life of me why older people read the newspaper at the end of the day. In any event, I needed to get his attention.
“Mom, Dad, I’m going to run for the South Carolina House against Thomas Rhoad,” I said.
My mother turned to me without hesitation and said, “I will vote for you.”
My dad, with somewhat of a snicker, put the paper down and said, “I will think about it.”
V
The Making of a Politician, Part 2
In 2005 Thomas Rhoad was an eighty-two-year-old Democratic Party stalwart who had served in the statehouse for twenty-four years—longer than I’d been alive. Born in Bamberg County in 1923, he was a World War II veteran, a farmer, had served on the county council, and had been a mail deliverer. There wasn’t anyone that he didn’t know.
However, some things made me think Rhoad was politically vulnerable. For instance, he was an older white man in a district that was majority African American. A lot of people were waiting on Rhoad to retire—a waiting game that reminded me of how so many people sat on the sidelines waiting too long for the long-serving US senator from South Carolina Strom Thurmond to retire.
My family had been in the community for seventy-five years, but something bigger than that cemented the idea that I must run. South Carolina’s “Corridor of Shame,” a region around I-95 where schools are not only poorly performing, but dilapidated, impoverished, and falling apart, runs right through the district. I thought of my friend Pop, and all the people I played ball with and grew up with and broke into the gym with in Denmark who were still there doing a lot of the same things—not because they didn’t want to do anything different but because there was no opportunity for them to do anything else. I figured that I had an incredible chance to create prospects.
The first thing I did was buy a marble composition notebook at CVS and write down the names of people I needed to meet. One of the first people I set out to connect with was former South Carolina governor Dick Riley. After securing a meeting and entering his law office, I saw he didn’t have anything on his desk, which made me wonder how much law he was practicing. Riley, a native of Greenville, which was part of the Upstate, or Upcountry as it’s sometimes called, was a legend in South Carolina. President Bill Clinton had tried to appoint him to the Supreme Court in 1993, but Riley refused, and the seat went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But later that year, the governor did become Clinton’s secretary of education.
I had known Riley since I was a child. In fact, most of the people I first went to see I knew through my father and from attending all those Orangeburg Massacre events when I was a little boy. I’d ring them up and say, “Hey, this is Little Cleve,” or “This is Little CL.”
Riley was on the phone when I walked in, so I sat down and waited. Soon enough, I noticed he was talking to Marian Wright Edelman, the famous children’s rights activist. “Marian, I’ll call you back,” he told her. “I have Bakari Sellers in here to chat with me for a little
while.”
When he hung up the phone, I asked, “Was that the Marian Wright Edelman?”
“Yeah, that’s who that was,” he said. It was a surreal moment for me.
What I love about Dick Riley is that he believes in the new generation. He loved my father and saw me as a younger version of him. Riley set a clear goal for me: “Make your dad and the state proud,” he said. His advice was simple and reassuring, so simple I could breathe and run with it.
My mother also used her connections to arrange for me to meet with a large advertising firm in Columbia called Chernoff Newman. I sat down with Rick Silver, one of the firm’s partners, who talked to me about marketing and my political platform. I told him I wanted to run on taking down the Confederate flag. He didn’t push back on that idea, but he pointed out other things that I could run on as well. For instance, South Carolina still had extremely concerning issues, such as poverty and health care, that were directly affecting everyone. From those meetings I developed a campaign platform that emphasized quality education for your kids along with first-class health care for your grandparents—no matter if you were black or white.
As I scratched names off in my marble notebook, I knew I had a strict timeline to follow. I wasn’t going to publicly announce my candidacy until September 18, 2005, because that was the day I turned twenty-one, and I couldn’t be on the ballot until I was legally considered an adult.
I also learned that not everyone was going to believe in my dream. For example, one of the first people I met before announcing was Darrell Jackson—a great family friend, a megachurch pastor, and a South Carolina politician. My father helped Darrell get his start, hiring him to assist Jesse Jackson during Jesse’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988, but Darrell broke my heart. I thought that he would be outwardly effusive and supportive; I thought he would endorse me. I think my family did too, but instead, when I told him of my plan to run against Rhoad, he cautioned me not to do that. “You should run for school board or something,” he told me. “Get your name out there first.”
In my young mind at the time, I believed Darrell was throwing cold water on my dreams. Was that devastating or disrespectful? Not at all. I think that his advice was probably sound under most circumstances. But I didn’t believe my first race to the statehouse, the race that would make history, was “most circumstances.”
Now I would say that most of us millennials get a perverse sense of affirmation when we prove people wrong. So although I was disappointed in the conversation with Darrell simply because he didn’t say what I wanted to hear, it motivated me. I wanted people to be supportive of my dream, but some of his comments made me realize that my youth was going to be an issue.
No disrespect to Senator Darrell Jackson, who to this day remains a friend and mentor, but I wasn’t about to wait my turn. I think he probably realized later that it wasn’t a typical conversation with a typical candidate, because I was Cleve Sellers’ boy—that is, I was going to go out and be that radical change, regardless.
One of the coolest and more interesting preannouncement meetings I had was with State Senator John Matthews, who was not only a black Democrat in my district but also someone extremely supportive of my political opponent Rhoad. And it wasn’t happenstance that Matthews picked Waffle House to talk politics.
In South Carolina, you go to the Waffle House to launch a political career or to grab a bite after you leave the strip club—and everything in between. Waffle Houses are more than a southern tradition; they’re a southern staple. They’re always open, they never let you down. My favorite meal is grilled pork chops with hash browns smothered with onions. In the South, Waffle House is also a reliable weather barometer. Hurricane warnings are nothing new in my home state, but if Waffle House closes its doors, you’d better evacuate!
Still, I admit I was hesitant about meeting Senator Matthews there, because you also smell like Waffle House when you leave.
I can’t remember whether I ordered anything, but he had an egg sandwich on white bread with a cup of coffee. The conversation was quick. Matthews was always somebody I looked up to. I wanted him to know that I was running, although the purpose of that conversation was not necessarily to get him to support me. Instead, I was making sure I humbled myself enough to get him to stay out of the race, meaning that he would not come out and outwardly support my opponent.
“I have a great deal of respect for, and I know you have a great deal of respect for, Representative Rhoad,” I told him. You always want to make sure to respect your opponent, because you’re never sure in politics how much your opponent over twenty years had helped the person you’re sitting across the table from. I asked Matthews for his guidance, which didn’t necessarily require him to do much. Now I did want him to give me some words of wisdom, but even more importantly I wanted him to stay out of my race. So then I just said it: “Can you do me a favor and not get involved in this race? I know that you can’t support me, but don’t hurt me. If you can please do me a favor and stay out, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Matthews sipped his coffee. Then he said, “Of course. I can do that.”
As any shrewd politician would do, I’m sure Matthews probably told Rhoad he would support him and maybe even did some things for him. But he wasn’t as harmful to me as he could have been if I hadn’t had that Waffle House conversation.
* * *
I started law school in August. Meanwhile, Jarrod was calling all our classmates from Morehouse and Spelman and raising money. They were sending me ten and twenty dollars at a time via online fundraising websites. The way to raise money in politics is far simpler than you could ever imagine. People always tell me, “But I don’t know any special interest groups.” Well, I didn’t either. And if I did, they were supporting my opponent. I also heard a lot of, “None of my friends have money.” Well, none of my friends had money either.
I began my campaign with the only money I could scrounge, which started with a one-thousand-dollar check from my mother. My campaign ran off that money for the first month. My mom and dad have handwritten address books they break out for graduations, deaths, and weddings. I started sending letters to people in their books, using my letterhead and stamps and envelopes I bought. I contacted every single person in my family and everyone on the list I made, maybe two hundred people, people who were invited to my graduation and otherwise. I simply wrote, “I am running for office and I need your help.”
My parents raised me to understand the value of a dollar. For instance, I especially appreciated and placed a high value on, say, a twenty-five-dollar check from an older church lady. I knew her money had great value because once she wrote a check, which likely came from her retirement, she was invested in my winning. She’d call her friends and stand up in church and remind everyone to vote for me. That’s how I raised money, from people who gave small amounts but were completely invested.
The primary election was scheduled for June 13, 2006, which meant we had nine months to run the race. I believed that gave us enough time to do everything we needed to do. Now, I always refer to campaigns as “we” and “us,” even if it’s just me knocking on a door. Whenever someone asks whether I’m considering running for something, I always say, “We are thinking about it.” The reason is simply because campaigns are about more than just the one person running.
I called Thomas Rhoad before making my announcement. I felt like that was the appropriate thing to do, but he never called me back. In fact, I never spoke with him once throughout the campaign until two days after I won. During the entire race, I ran against an opponent who I would always treat with respect, but I don’t know whether he respected me or not.
Anton Gunn, a young black man who also ran for office in 2006, was on my list of people to talk to and would later be important to President Obama’s 2008 candidacy. Anton had lunch with me one day at Harpers, in Columbia. He is six-foot-five and about three hundred pounds, a former star offensive lineman for the University of South Carol
ina. My father, who was a professor there for nearly two decades, was Anton’s adviser. Anton, soft-spoken and smart as a whip, destroys every stereotype one might have of an imposing athlete.
He, in turn, introduced me to Kendall Corley, a brilliant political consultant. I hired Kendall and probably paid him mere hundreds a month. He’s a consultant extraordinaire now, but when I met him, Kendall didn’t have any races under his belt. However, he could “cut maps.” He was brilliant at it, like a mad scientist figuring out through data and studying maps where I should knock on doors.
Finally, on September 18, 2005, my twenty-first birthday, I held my niece in my arms outside the old train depot in Denmark and announced my candidacy. Only one reporter was there, along with family members and church folk who attended our family church, St. Philip’s Episcopal. I don’t know whether they thought I could win, but I knew they believed in me. From that day on, I started knocking on doors.
On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, I’d knock on about four hundred doors, and every other day I’d knock on only one hundred. Most of the time, I was out there by myself, but sometimes volunteers joined me. Kendall made sure we hit the right areas.
I knew we were gaining traction when we had volunteers go back and knock on the same doors. One man who lived in Norway finally came to the door. “I’m going to vote for him,” he said, “but if you knock on my door one more time, I’m a vote for the other person.”
I’d often go door knocking after a law class. I’d grab a map, put on a pair of slacks and a campaign shirt, and walk and knock. It didn’t matter to me if there was a Confederate flag in the yard; I was still knocking on that door. If a house had a pit bull in the front yard, I’d creep around to the back on tip toe and try to knock on the back door. I met mothers who gave me lemonade and cookies and introduced me to their daughters. And I met people who told me, “Go to hell, I’ll never vote for a Democrat in my lifetime.”
My Vanishing Country Page 8