Bakari Sellers remembers getting a call from an anonymous number in the USC School of Law parking lot as he was walking to class. It was then-Senator Barack Obama, asking for his endorsement.
“I told him I was running late to class, so it would have to be a short phone call,” Sellers told a room full of students, his face in his hands.
Obama asked what the subject of the class was. “By that time, I was already [working] at the capitol and I hadn’t been to class in, like, six weeks, so I told him it was ethical law. But I forgot that was what he used to teach.” According to Sellers, he chatted with the senator on the subject before confirming that he would endorse Obama’s candidacy.
The rest is history.
With one week until Election Day, USC’s College Democrats hosted the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Tuesday night. Sellers, 30, is a USC-trained lawyer and former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives who gave up his seat to run in this election.
“I’m here because I need you,” he said to the crowd of students in the Russell House Theatre. “If I’m going to make history, then I need your votes.”
At the age of 22, Sellers had already made history when he became the youngest elected representative in the State of South Carolina, and the first black representative elected since 1876. When Sellers told his parents he was going to run for office when he was 20 years old, his mother said she'd vote for him, but his father said he’d "think about it.”
According to Sellers, he was the youngest member of a state’s legislation in the U.S. at the time. And for that reason, Sellers caught the attention of then-Senator Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential election.
For Sellers, the School of Law parking lot is not the only place that holds fond memories. He said the USC campus feels like a second home. His father, Cleveland L. Sellers Jr., was the Director of the Department of African American Studies in the 1980s.
“I grew up in Gambrell Hall,” he said. It was there that he formed a close relationship with the pursuit of knowledge and change and curiosity. “You should check out the [Gambrell] basement sometime."
Sellers, who said he “jumped ditches for fun” when he was a child in rural South Carolina, has come a long way on the political spectrum. Now, he wants to put greater emphasis on education in this state.
“I’m tired of turning on late night TV and seeing South Carolina made fun of,” he said, adding that he wants to “restore dignity and pride to the state” and plans to do so by way of legislation.
Sellers said his favorite piece of legislation was a domestic abuse bill he worked on that was never passed. According to Sellers, more women are killed by domestic abuse in South Carolina than any other state and one in four women are sexually assaulted on college campuses across the country every day.
“One is too many,” Sellers said, encouraging the men in the crowd to “take pride in protecting” their girlfriends, wives and friends. “If you don’t, it could be you."
Sellers also revealed to students that his current total student loan debt is $120,000. He encouraged students to take more of a stand on how they are treated financially by the university.
“Raise pure hell if I win or lose, so you have a voice on the Board of Trustees,” he said, noting the recent tuition raise.
If elected, he hopes to offer more need-based financial aid to low-income students. For Sellers, this election is about “turning the page.” He plans not to look at South Carolina as what it “was or is, but what it can be.”
He said that, to him, the two greatest issues in this election are seniors and elementary education. However, when asked what his action plan would be if he were to take office, Sellers was unable to provide specific examples or an exact plan of action. Instead he urged his platform of change and growth.
If elected, Sellers will first drink a celebratory Blue Moon in his office. Then, he plans set to work "turning the page" in South Carolina.