Cleveland Sellers oral history interview conducted by John Dittmer in Denmark, South Carolina,

Cleveland Sellers shares memories of growing up in Denmark, South Carolina, especially the influence of Voorhees College in the community. He organized a Youth Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Denmark, and he describes the group's activities. He discusses his first impressions of Howard University, where he joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG). He shares memories of the March on Washington and the role of students in organizing it, his involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and his role in the Mississippi Freedom Project. He also describes the goals of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the tensions that developed within SNCC in the late 1960s.

Recorded in Denmark, South Carolina, on March 21, 2013.

Civil Rights History Project Collection (AFC 2010/039), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Copies of items are also held at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.).

Dr. Cleveland Sellers was a civil rights activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was arrested after the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968. He later became a professor of African American studies at the University of South Carolina and president of Voorhees College.

The Civil Rights History Project is a joint project of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture to collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement.

In English.

Finding aid http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af013005

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1960 - 1969

Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/

Public Domain