Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Ambitions for Future Leadership

BOND: I also read in this research we conducted on you is that you’ve said that you might want to be governor of South Carolina one day. Is that an aspiration that you’re working toward or something that may happen?

SELLERS: I don’t know if I’m working toward that. I was speaking with Gwen Ifill when the last question that she had was, you know, "Where do you see yourself maybe in five years?" And I hate questions like that. Those are the absolute worst questions to ask anyone, especially a politician because, you know, our candor response is supposed to be, I’m going to represent the citizens of blank blank as long as they keep me here. And I do want to represent the citizens of District 90 as long as they want me to stay there. I’m not a huge fan of D.C. It’s nine square miles and you don’t have lawns and you can’t, like, ride a horse or something.

BOND: I have a lawn.

SELLERS: You have a lawn?

BOND: I have a lawn, yes.

SELLERS: That’s cool.

BOND: Front lawn and a back lawn.

SELLERS: Really? That’s rare in D.C.

BOND: And a lawnmower.

SELLERS: You have a lawnmower, too?

BOND: Yes.

SELLERS: Well, that’s not typical in D.C., but it’s nine square miles and I love the country living. I love sitting on twenty acres and having cotton fields behind your house and things like that, but the governor does have a nice house and, you know, running a campaign that I think would mean so much to Southerners and if you’re able to win, to be the first black governor of a Southern state. You can say whether or not you want to include Virginia in the South or not. I think that would mean a lot.