REPORTER: Make the choice to begin anywhere in your life and the journey has started.

And along the way, be inspired.

Listen to the stories by joining the President of Howard University, Dr. Wayne ai Frederick, on The Journey.

The most important election of our lifetime, and it's important to hear from political analysts who can give us insight on the political issues of the day.

Our guest today, is a young man who is front and center on the issues in the black community and beyond.

Hello, my name is Dr. Wayne Frederick, and my guest today on The Journey is CNN political commentator and the author of My Vanishing Country, Bakari Sellers.

So welcome Mr.

Sellers.

And I'd like you to start with telling us a bit about where you grew up in Denmark, South Carolina.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you for the great questions.

Starting at the beginning of my journey.

You know, Denmark is a small town where we have three stoplights and a blinking light.

Right, very poor and rural.

You know, growing up we were related to everyone.

And your your parents, were in your father at least was in the education business.

As well, I would imagine that that had a significant influence on you and your view of HBCUs.

Both my mom and dad.

My dad was an HBCU president, so I pray for you everyday, Dr. Frederick you know how thankless your job can be, and dealing with your board of trustees.

You know, my father was president for eight years, and he said that's when he got sick of the board and the board got sick of him.

So, and my mom she taught business communications at South Carolina State.

And so I used to remember those games where South Carolina State would play Howard, and you had sweet flight white, right?

And you you know, these just amazing clashes and bands before and after the games.

It was such a cultural experience and my my parents taught me this.

They said that you can go to any school you wanna go to in the country, as long as it's an HBCU.

And so I went to Morehouse, my brother went to Morehouse and my sister went to Xavier.

But my father, he actually started his education at Howard University.

And was roommates with a young man named Stokely Carmichael.

And so he ended up finishing, he dropped out of Howard to join Snick, but he ended up finishing at Shaw.

And so this HBCU, it runs through my blood.

And Stokely Carmichael, as you know, grew up in the same place that I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago.

Yeah?

Interestingly enough, I attended a school there that my grandfather was the principal of, just thinking of so.

So my, my son is actually named Stokely after Stokely Carmichael, and my sister, and my sister's name is Nosizwe.

And, that name has a great history with Stokely and his wife in South Africa and so, you know, I admire the Stokelys and Julians, and Shirley Clark Franklin who was also a graduate of Howard University.

And so, you know, it's just the nexus and the richness of the culture that comes from the HBCU experience.

I see.

What was your public high school experience like in South Carolina at that time?

So I went to a school that was not in the corridor of shame.

But it was on the footprint of the corridor of shame, and the corridor of shame for those who are watching and don't know is where kids go to school and their heating and air don't work.

Where their infrastructure's falling apart.

Very poor dilapidated schools where I represented in the South Carolina general assembly.

But, my school was big.

I went to at the time the largest black high school in the state, it's since lost size.

It was a very violent high school.

We had, we had more school resource officers than guidance counselors.

It was overcrowded.

But it made me who I was.

And I was really young.

When I went to ninth grade I was 12 years old.

When I went to Morehouse I was 16 years old.

And if I didn't go to that school, I probably would not have survived in Atlanta at that very, very young age.

So, yeah, I'm very thankful for all of the individuals who poured so much into me from that school.

The only thing I wish is that there were more young people who went to school with me who had opportunities.

And opportunities to go to college, and opportunities to do more, because by no means was I the smartest.

I wasn't the most athletic.

There were people who were way smarter than me, more athletic than me.

They just didn't have the opportunity.

You know, I believe culture is tolerated behavior, and on my campus I try to remind people of that, that there are good tolerated behaviors and bad tolerated behavior.

From afar, I have admired Morehouse men.

Because you have a tolerated behavior pride in your black manhood.

What about your Morehouse experience you think may have transformed your perspective about your own manhood and your own blackness?

So understanding the lessons that were taught at Morehouse, the one, and this is more of a universal teaching of an HBCU.

But one, you can be unapologetically black.

You can have that sense of pride and so, you can recognize the richness of our culture and history.

You can also understand the diversity.

People ask me all the time.

They're like, diversity?

You went to a all-black HBCU all-male?

What type of but we had, you know we had individuals representing from countries around the world.

You know, all 50 states, had very, very much diverse backgrounds.

So that's first.

What's unique to Morehouse though is the leadership traits that they teach you from when you walk in.

You know, they tell us that they'd place a crown above our head for us to grow into.

And while every HBCU can run down a litany of notable alums.

You know, we really take pride in the Julian Bonds and the Otis Moss's, and the you know the Dr. Kings and those individuals who dedicated themselves to public service.

And so, you know for us at Morehouse it's that sense of pride of becoming a part of something larger than yourself, and always carrying yourself.

Now that, that I appreciate your admiration from afar, because for some, there's an old saying that you can always tell a Morehouse man you just can't tell him much.

And so we we have to make sure that that pride stays in check as well.

But it is a tolerated behavior, one of leadership and one of pride.

And that's true.

You can't tell them much, but I have to be honest, I mean, Morehouse men have done lots of great things.

And I appreciate from afar that closeness and togetherness.

I think it says a lot about where we are as a society as well.

I often say that one of our issues is self hate.

I don't think we practice enough self love.

And I don't necessarily mean to ourselves as individual, but to our community as a whole.

And the more that we have an opportunity to come together, which brings me to part of your career obviously has been in the legislative in South Carolina.

And what led to you joining at such a young age, and what about that experience you took away from that, especially in a state like South Carolina?

So you know, I got the bug when I was working for United States Congressman, Jim Cliburn, and also Atlanta mayor, Shirley Franklin, when I got the job with Shirley because of course she was at Howard with my dad, and he was always calling her Shirley Clark.

And I'm like, I don't know who that is, dad.

But it was actually her her maiden name.

And she's been just so awesome in in helping me guide me through my political career.

And so once you get that bug, most people will tell you in politics, you just can't, you can't get rid of it.

You know, experiencing you know the ability to change people's lives every day.

You know, the culture of Morehouse taught us that we could go out and run for office, and it didn't matter how old we were, as long as we prioritize, had our ethos, you know, knew what we stood for, treated politics as a science like it truly is.

And I went home and realized that my community, it wasn't growing slowly or stagnantly, it was declining.

And so I ran against my dad who was 82 years old.

We've been in office for 26 years, which was longer than I had been born.

And on June 13, 2006, I became the youngest black elected official in the country.

I asked myself very simple questions like if not me then who, and if not now than when?

And I challenged more young people, particularly young black women to get involved in the political process.

I'm hopeful that that Senator Harris be victorious, but even more so, I hope that she will be somewhat of a beacon for youngpeople of color, showing them they can make headway in this, in this, in this process, this political process.

Because our democracy is, you know, it's very much participant's work.

And I know on a personal note on June 13, 2006, my, my son turned two.

And that was just about a month shy of the booth of my daughter.

So I'm now a father of a 16 year old son and a 14 year old daughter.

You have a very personal story that you've been pretty open about in terms of bringing kids into the world and how see maternal health, especially black maternal health as well.

You know, would you share some of that with us?

Yeah, so, you know, my number one political issue is African-American (indistinct).

We discussed that on, on my podcast and thank you for you and Dr. Carlisle lending your time and your expertise.

It was really a conversation, truly elevated the discourse.

But, you know, my, literally like my heart breaks for Chrissy in the day.

You know, Chrissy is going through, you know, a great deal losing her child during birth.

We had an amazing pregnancy.

We had an awful birth.

But for the fact that we had three wound colors our OB, GYNs, my wife probably would not be here today.

She began to hemorrhage.

She lost seven units of blood while we were learning how to breastfeed twins.

Which is a whole lot in itself.

She passed out.

She began to throw up, they kinda tossed the twins to me and the lactation lactation assistant.

We threw them in there, and there, I will never forget it.

We threw them in there, little cribs that they gave us and we put them in the wrong group.

Just that's just how panicky we were.

I was yelling for the nurses.

They were moving slow as hell, all outdoor them.

And they just would not move fast.

They were like, she's okay.

She's okay.

Then we pull back the sheet and it was just blood everywhere.

So I literally just FaceTime my wife's doctor.

She was in our same social circle.

Remember the links, you know, Jack and all of those things.

And she said, I'm gonna get my girlfriends, which were her coworkers on the phone.

One literally had an eight year old in the bed.

She left the garage open and told the neighbor to come over and check on him.

She got in the car, they ultrasound my wife and realized that she had a stomach full of blood.

And she was, she was bleeding out and that, they went in and did what's called a Bockarie below.

Which ironically enough, my name being Bakari, a Bockarie below was just too much on point.

And here I am.

You know, saying that that college prey, I don't know if you said it when you were in school, you probably were much better student than I, but the college praise, when you have a rough Friday night and Saturday morning, you wake up and you like , dear God If you get me through this, I'll never do X, Y, and Z again.

And so I said that, cause here I was with these twins and they just had these, they just gave me formula.

And my wife was in a surgery for about four or five hours.

No one was allowed on the floor with me.

So it's just me and the twins.

You know, it was just, it's a feeling that I never wish on anybody.

My wife was in ICU for 36 hours, the first 36 hours in my kid's life.

You know, doing amazing now.

And you know, my, my kids are doing a great, now my daughter ended up having to have a liver transplant, which was another whole ordeal.

But just understanding the healthcare delivery system, the implicit biases from that system, just gives me more motivation to again make sure that people have opportunities to live healthy and happy lives, including black women who are giving birth.

And, you know, maternal mortality, was a major issue in the United States and most people don't recognize that.

but we have some cities, including the district of Columbia, where the maternal mortality rate is much higher than some tootle countries.

And that's something that we have to continue to bring to light primarily because of, of black women who are far more likely to die doing birth.

So you know, you being an addict experienced, all I think is important.

But the first story I actually heard about you in terms of your personal journey, was your daughter's liver transplant.

And that's very meaningful to me.

My mentor is, one of my mentors is a surgeon named Clive colander, who, I have said that it has, he single handedly would have done more for minority transplantation in this country than any other single physician in our lifetime.

He's been here at Howard, started an organization called (indistinct) to bring about awareness, to donor matching and so on into minority community.

And, given that aspect of what you went through with your daughter, what are some of your learnings that you want to share with the audience?

Yeah, so the, our transplant system in this country is broken.

Fundamentally broken.

You know, I've, I was on a floor with a lot of different parents.

And you know, we were at Duke university, phenomenal institution.

You know, one of the best transplant centers in the world.

And we were walking around the floor and we were with people who were having, you know, entire like bow and intestinal transplants.

I mean, just, you know, my daughter's sitting here, she was on the liver transplant list for 93 days.

Every single day, she's dying right before your eyes.

And we were just looking around at everyone else and what they were going through.

We were like, well, we're blessed that it's just a liver, Right?

And so we went through this very broken system and got the phone call.

It was a, a young boy who, you know, had passed away, had a liver that was a decent size.

They only had to shave a little bit of it.

I remember hearing the helicopter land on the top of the hospital, when they were bringing his liver down to take to take out Sadie's own liver.

You know, she was diagnosed with biliary atresia, which is a very rare liver disease.

Is one in 20,000 young people.

And then I realized statistics like African-Americans are less than 5% of the donor pool.

You know, I have Sadie just made it through her one year biopsy with flying colors as her liver has no scarring, no damage, no nothing.

It's just perfect.

And so now I'm going to be a, a live donor, liver donor flow, try to pay it forward.

I encourage more people of color to be living donors.

To check off, you know, a transplant on your driver's license.

Cause you can save so many lives.

This, the young boy who passed away.

I believe it was seven or eight different people.

including his eyes that he was able to help improve the the applied.

It truly is the gift of life.

You know my daughter is so healthy running around, chasing her brother now.

You know, we've other than taking tech growth every single day, twice a day, like she will the rest of her life.

You know, there's, there's no, difference.

And it's just a blessing.

And, again we have more, more people of color need to understand we are going through this process.

We actually started a foundation called the (indistinct).

The reason being is because, I mean, it sucks that Frederick cause you got a kid, mostly poor and people of color, they get a transplant.

Then they have to go to the Ronald McDonald house.

And then they have to, you know, get their foods and vegetables from, you know, a food pantry.

And how are you supposed to, I mean, you gotta make sure that you're eating right, your vitamins, you're getting your prescriptions, all of these things for the transplants to be successful.

And if you're in, if you're impoverished, they don't even want to give you a transplant because of the lack of success.

And I don't wanna pick on a medical institution, but you know that many times you have to have very high success rates for there to be other funding and for you to be reviewed properly, etc.

And so, it's really extra and simple with a broken system.

Yeah.

And we appreciate every head of transplant program here at Howard.

That's now closed down for some of the reasons that you ended there with.

But I wanna, also commend you for telling that story because I think it's a story that we have to get out.

I have sickle cell, I've never had a blood transfusion but, I do PSAs for the American red cross as an example because I think more of us have to participate.

And, certainly people like myself with sickle cell or the beneficiary of, you know, the kind spirit that people like you have.

So we appreciate that.

Just to switch gears a bit.

South Carolina is an interesting state right now in our national discourse for more reasons than one.

But I wanna start first with an incident that ironically again, took place on my birthday.

My son's birthday is June 20th and mine is June 17th.

And the attack at the Emmanuel church is something that I will always remember for a variety of reasons.

But one of them is hearing you be interviewed and speak to what it could and to see the emotion on your face at that time told a very different story.

You know, tell me the South Carolina then, the South Carolina that has lost the, the Confederate flag, and the South Carolina that we're looking as we go into presidential election today.

Well, I mean at this, my thesis would probably be if I was just writing about that then and now would be that we've made progress, but we still have other ways to go.

You know, that was, that was one of the more painful moments in our state's entire history.

You know, nine people were killed because of the color of their skin.

Cummings Eugene, who's the pastor of that church was a good friend of mine.

In fact, my house seat was in his Senate district.

And so we communicated often about the politics of the day when I was running for Lieutenant governor in 2014.

My last campaign stop was at his former church, where he was there and he presided over.

And we had a, as you know we, we love our frats issue in South Carolina.

So we had a fried Whiting in the back of the church.

He had this really big voice.

you know his, you know, some of the details people don't know like the straggly white boy walked them to the door.

They let them in, they didn't know him from Adam and they, he prayed and worshiped with them for a entire hour, And Clem set him out on the other side, but set him right beside him.

He was the first person that Dylan roof shot.

And Clem also was the only person who made it to the hospital that night.

He shot him Knacky he made it to the hospital where he subsequently died.

His wife was in the church and his daughter was in the church that night with them.

His daughter, just last week, won, her class president elections.

And so Jennifer was telling us, do you ever pay any claims wife and posted it on Twitter?

And you know, the whole state Democrat and Republicans were cheering for this girl who won this race.

It was fascinating.

And she won.

And so, you know, just that legacy, that pain, that struggle, we've come a long way in South Carolina from that moment.

And I don't believe claims life will be in vain.

We are going to have an interesting election night here.

Where I believe we'll be close and put some more cracks in the glass of progress.

And, and as you look at that, you have a close race for the Senate seat, with an African American as the contender.

What do you think that says about the electorate and South Carolina and how, how possible you really think it is for that Senate seat to be flipped?

It's tough.

You know, I believe it can be done, but it's really, really tough.

You know, I think that what we're seeing is, is just the perfect storm, you know, even the debate or whatever that was recently that people watched.

My daughter was terrified after watching it.

I don't know if I'm gonna let her watch the next two.

But, you know, I just think that it's the perfect convergence of events.

Will it be enough?

I don't know, because this still is South Carolina.

But you know the, the fact that we actually have a chance is, is just a wild scenario.

But I, you know, also Dr. Frederick never thought the Confederate flag would come down ever.

And, here we are.

So, you know, anything is possible to quote Kevin Barnett after he won the finals.

Yeah.

I watched the debates with my 16 year old son and 14 year old daughter.

And it was a kind of civic lesson one that you're right, that I'm not as excited to participate.

And again, but one that I have to tell you, I think was important.

Because, I also think it's important for them to see what can and cannot be.

And to be very honest and realistic and pragmatic, to some extent about where we are.

Now, as you you know, we're recruiting young bright students here, who many of them come to me and they have interest in becoming the next Bakari Sellers as an example.

And as you look at the political landscape in our country today, and yes, we have Senator Harris and maybe well on her way.

But there are some practical things and practical advice that young people need in terms of watch woods and, and things that they should still do.

And oftentimes I don't want people to feel that they can skip those, in order to get to the next level.

What are some of those things you would want the young people to be thinking about and making sure that they double down on?

So, you know there, there are a few things.

One, you don't have to be any particular major or have any particular degree to go into politics.

In fact, you know, people who come from varying backgrounds make even better political figures.

But you gotta learn how to count.

Because every election you need 50% plus one vote to win, right?

So, you know, politics is about addition and multiplication, not division and subtraction.

And that has to be your mind state as you go forward.

So that's kind of first.

Second thing is you need to figure out who you are.

And what you stand for.

Because if you're someone who kind of blows with the wind, who is somewhat of a jellyfish politically, you won't, you won't have much success and you won't be around long and you'll probably get yourself in trouble.

You gotta figure out what your career is gonna be.

Because if you want to come into politics to make money, then you probably either gonna be broke or indicted.

So, make sure that you have a career.

Make sure that you understand what your, what you wanna be and what your, your, your work ethic and, and job trajectory looks like.

And I think lastly, always dream with your eyes open.

You know, nobody wants an elected official and doesn't have any vision.

So, be a visionary.

Understand.

You know, the best example is this that did you know that you could just take up mailboxes if you were the president of the United States?

Because I had no idea that was possible, right?

Donald Trump has taught us the power and the wheel of the white house.

Because there things that he's doing that I had no idea or even, like I literally just saw mailboxes being put on back trucks.

And so I use that as an example, because I want people to not necessarily ascribe to be Donald Trump by any stretch.

But, I do want them to ascribe to see what has not been done yet and figure out how we get there.

And , I guess the other thing is you've written a book, My Vanishing Country.

As you reflect on, So as you reflect on your past, on your present, some of the experiences that you've had growing up in this country, what are some of the things that you still have so much hope for, despite the vanishing aspects?

So yeah, I mean my just like you I mean, I believe that it's our children, who we live for.

You know, my twins are 20 months, I have a 15 year old daughter and none of them deserve to to grow up in the country that we live in today.

And so, our work is not yet done.

I'll give you one example of a very liquid example.

My 15 year old daughter after George Floyd, she went out with her girlfriends, put a mask on all black, had a sign that said black lives matter.

They protest, they marched.

I loved it, but it also drove me crazy.

Because, here my daughter is 15 years old and she has to have a sign that reaffirms our basic level of humanity.

What are we doing?

And, we need to make sure that we work that much harder to improve the plight of those young people who fall behind us.

And as we begin to wrap up a couple of things that I wanna make sure that we touch on.

We certainly want to see you here on campus post pandemic.

But being in the middle of the pandemic, it has really taken ripped the bandage off of a lot of our inequities in the country.

What are some of your thoughts about your observations and things that you think you've learned as we see this pandemic unfold?

You know, so for me, you know, I look at Denmark, South Carolina where I'm from, where in Denmark, we don't have potable water and a water system.

I like a lot of black and Brown communities in this country.

We live in a food desert where you can't go two, three miles to get fresh fruits and vegetables.

And, You know, the air is somewhat polluted from the manufacturing plants around, the small businesses have been closed.

And the plants that were actually good high paying jobs have since gone as an acting captain.

And our hospital closed in 2010.

So now if you have a hard time with pretty much that sentence, right?

So access to that type of care in most rural areas.

But when you look at all of these systemic injustices, and then you overlay of endemic, it's no wonder black folk are dying at higher rates and disparate rates.

And that just shows you that we have to cure.

As you said, rip the bandaid off.

We have to go in and root out the systemic inequities we have.

And so that people have a basic chance to survive and live.

And that's just a part of the vanishing country, but it also shows us where we are in this (indistinct).

Usually when I have Howard alum on this program, I end with the question why Howard, I'm going to be respectful of my Morehouse brother today and ask you the question, why an HBCU today?

For those young people, who are out there protesting black lives matter, they want to make a change.

Why an HBCU?

So I'll do you one better.

I actually am answering the question, why Howard today?

My 15 year old, her choices are the university of North Carolina or Howard university.

And so, otherwise (indistinct), I am answering the why Howard question.

She loves your volleyball program.

She loves the HBCU experience, the biggest news she got with the two kids who you guys stole from Texas (indistinct) to come play volleyball at Howard.

So, she's, she is so excited and she has a big cousin who came to Howard and pledged, and she was able to see all of these things.

Just experiences you may not get at the university of North Carolina.

So I'm answering the why Howard question.

And if you have some somehow already advice and tips, we would greatly take it in our house.

I'm trying to beat out her, her father and and my wife.

And two they're both North Carolina graduates.

So it's just me and my son.

Well my daughter is 14.

She's a volleyball player.

So they may be teammates.

So I'll be happy to help (indistinct) and why Howard university.

Your daughter is not going to school where her dad is the president.

(chuckles) Oh, so so that linear might be a definition of where my ten year ends?

She'll be she'll be at (indistinct) 2024.

So right there, she might be ending my presidency with dad.

(chuckles) Fair enough.

Thanks very much for spending the time with us.

Your journey has been absolutely amazing.

I've been a fan and has been great to watch you from afar.

As I said before, I think our community needs a lot more self love about it and self hate.

There's a lot more we could do together than apart.

And certainly I think you've been one of the people who who's been leading.

And so, it's a great opportunity to share your story with our wider community.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me, have a blessed day.

All right.

Take care.

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