T. J. Sellers

Thomas Jerome Sellers (1911 - 2006 [1]), was an African American journalist, newspaper editor, newspaper publisher, and educator from Charlottesville, Virginia.

Life

Sellers was born in 1911 and grew up in Charlottesville and nearby Esmont, Virginia. For a time he attended Esmont High School and in 1930, was a member of the first class of African American students to graduate from an accredited high school in the Charlottesville area, the Jefferson School. Remembering his school experience in a 1977 editorial in The New York Times, Sellers described the racist environment in which the small, all-female faculty of Jefferson High School taught him.[2] Sellers' wife, Eleanor, later became an English teacher at Jefferson High School. The couple were prominent members of Charlottesville's African American community until they moved north in the early 1950s.[3] They had a daughter, Thomasine, in 1942.[4] In the 1940s, Sellers was employed as the Charlottesville superintendent of the Richmond Beneficial Insurance Company.[5]

Sellers was a strong voice for African American representation in both Charlottesville and Commonwealth politics,[6] and advocated tirelessly for black issues through the Jim Crow era. Along with other prominent local African Americans, he was present at the hearing on September 9, 1950, when the University of Virginia was forced to admit its first African American student, Gregory Swanson, to the school of Law.[7] Sellers's influence—and vocal criticism—led budding white civil rights activist Sarah Patton Boyle to seek his advice. Sellers became Boyle's mentor in her quest to support school integration in Charlottesville, and Boyle discusses Sellers's personality, words, and actions in depth in her memoir, The Desegregated Heart.[8]

In 1953, the Sellers family moved to New York. In New York, he attended New York University where he received his B.A in the early 1950s. He also entered NYU's graduate program in Supervision and Administration.[9] In the 1960s he taught at P.S.175, where the curriculum included African American history, which was not common at the time.[10] He continued teaching into the 1970s[11] and then worked in education administration in the northeast Bronx, serving as a special assistant to a Community School District Superintendent and Director of Education Information Services and Public Relations.[12][13][9] In 1974, he was the speaker for the Charlottesville branch of the N.A.A.C.P.'s presentation on "U.S. Supreme Court School Desegregation Decision - Twenty Years After".[9] He was a member of the Education Writers Association and the National School Public Relations Association.[9]

Newspaper career

Sellers began his newspaper career early, as editor of the Esmont High School Journal. His first professional newspaper, The Reflector, began publication in Charlottesville in 1933, and was advertised as "Charlottesville's Only Negro Weekly."[14] Articles and editorials, mostly composed by Sellers, covered a range of topics, including local politics, African American rights, news including reports on local lynchings, some national news, and local African American society news.[15] No issues from The Reflector dated later than 1935 appear to have survived.[16] As a freshman at Virginia Union University in 1935, Sellers started a magazine, The Dawn, while also serving on the staff of the Union publication The Panther.[17] With students from several other schools, he was a founder of the Colored Collegiate Press Association in 1937.[18] He served as a member of the editorial staff and wrote intermittently for the Norfolk New Journal and Guide, which published his writing from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1950, Sellers became the editor of The Charlottesville Tribune, a satellite publication of the Roanoke Tribune. It ran for just a few years.[19] After his move to New York, Sellers worked as managing editor of the Amsterdam News until 1956.

Newspaper collections

The only known surviving copies of The Reflector and The Charlottesville Tribune are housed at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, where the first issue of The Dawn may also be found.

References
  1. https://cvillebridgebuilders.org/biographies/
  2. P, Young, Jr. "University of Virginia Yields to Court Order." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Sep 09 1950: 2. ProQuest. 10 Apr. 2018 .
  3. "Mrs. Eleanor B. Sellers Dead." New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993) Nov 04 1967: 4. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  4. "First Birthday" New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Sep 04 1943: 1. ProQuest. 10 Apr. 2018 .
  5. "Charlottesville Council Candidate Boosted by Sellers in Radio Talk." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Mar 30 1946: 3. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10 .
  6. "Meet Virginia Governor,Seek More Jobs." The Chicago Defender (National edition) (1921-1967) Jan 12 1952: 13. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  7. P. Young, Jr. "University of Virginia Yields to Court Order." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Sep 09 1950: 2. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  8. Boyle, Sarah Patton (2016-10-27). The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian's Stand in Time of Transition. Pickle Partners Publishing. ISBN 9781787201897.
  9. "T.J. Sellers to be NAACP Speaker Here, May 17th". Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune. May 9, 1974.
  10. "Photo Standalone 60 -- no Title." New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993) Jul 11 1964: 46. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  11. Editor's note in Sellers, T. J. "An Answer to Shanker." New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993) Jan 25 1975: 5. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  12. Editor's note to Sellers, T. J. "If I had My Way, Inner-City Teachers would:" New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Jan 05 1974: 9. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  13. Editors note to Sellers, T. J. "Black Pride: The Genuine Kind." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003) Nov 13 1976: 8. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  14. "The Reflector". Chronicling America. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  15. "Race and Place Newspapers". www2.vcdh.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  16. "The Reflector: Holdings". Chronicling America. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  17. Vessells, A. L. "Union Freshman Edits Magazine." The Chicago Defender (National edition) (1921-1967) Jun 08 1935: 24. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  18. "College Editors Organize." The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938) Apr 24 1937: 23. ProQuest. Retrieved 2018-4-10.
  19. James, Michael E. (2005). The Conspiracy of the Good: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Community in Two American Cities, 1875-2000. Peter Lang. p. 318. ISBN 9780820457796.
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