My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers

Author:Bakari Sellers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

VII

Risk Taking

The last time an African American was elected to a statewide political office in South Carolina was back in 1876. Obviously, my state needed a change, which is why in 2014 I took a huge political risk: I decided to give up my seat in the state House of Representatives and run for lieutenant governor.

I was twenty-nine years old, and everybody asked me the same thing: Do you really think you can win? The answer was always—Yes!

I spent my twenties serving in the South Carolina General Assembly. I loved it, but I began to feel like I was growing stagnant. Running for statewide office gave me an opportunity to make history, and because of state constitutional changes, it would be the last time a candidate for lieutenant governor could run alone, on his or her own merits, rather than tied to a gubernatorial ticket.

But there was a deeper reason I wanted to run for that office. The roof of the cafeteria of Denmark-Olar Elementary School, which is just more than a mile from where I grew up, collapsed in 2010, without any news coverage, as if no one cared. The youngest of the school’s students attend classes in trailers. When it rains, the children, all African American, trek through mud to get to their classrooms.

There’s a reason why a collapsed school roof in the poor rural South received no press: because it’s typical. On a statewide platform, I knew I could speak about the “Corridor of Shame,” where thousands of rural children across the South attend schools that are dilapidated and falling apart. I’m a product of the proverb “it takes a village to raise a child,” but all around me I was seeing the village crumbling.

And it wasn’t just the schools; we had other issues that needed attention. Hospitals were still closed, especially in communities that needed them the most. People were traveling five hours a day for low-paying jobs, and the most vulnerable were drinking water unfit for human consumption.

Henry McMaster, my opponent, had been in political or appointed office since 1984. He had worked for President Ronald Reagan as his US attorney in South Carolina. He ran an unsuccessful bid for the Senate back in 1986 but ultimately became the state’s Republican Party chairman and also the attorney general for the state. He was obviously a big deal, but we were a clear contrast. I believed I represented hope and the future, and he stood for the past.

One of the first things Jill Fletcher, my fundraiser, and I did was to visit Congressman Clyburn at his large district office at the intersection of Lady and Sumter streets in Columbia. I was excited to talk to the congressman about my ambition and wanted to get his support. Besides, he was one of the reasons I had entered politics in the first place.

At twenty-nine, I was still too young for some people, but I had a track record. I had built a school in Bamberg County and a library in Denmark, and I had brought a door company to my hometown.

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