Sellers returned to his home town of Denmark several years ago, after earning a Ph.D. in education from the University of North Carolina. But until his pardon last month, he had been unable to get a college teaching job in South Carolina--even though he serves on the state Board of Education. The University of South Carolina has since offered him a one-year faculty appointment, beginning this fall, teaching Afro-American studies and civil-rights history.
On the Sunday after Sellers' pardon, South Carolina's largest daily newspaper, the Columbia State, said in its lead editorial that the pardon "was long, long overdue," but represented "a significant step toward reconciliation and the healing process." To Sellers, the meaning of the pardon "is the state had said it's sorry, not to me, but through me to a larger class of African-Americans."
