A documentary about Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state representative and candidate for lieutenant governor, will premiere on SCETV on Sun. April 7 at 6 p.m.

While I Breathe, I Hope follows Sellers through his 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor, a position he eventually lost to current Gov. Henry McMaster. (That was the last year when candidates for governor and lieutenant governor were elected separately.)

The film, which runs about an hour and 15 minutes, also follows Sellers through the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel and the subsequent removal of the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds, according to a press release from SCETV.

In 2006, Sellers became the youngest black elected official in America after he was elected to represent District 90 in the S.C. House of Representatives, which includes the cities of Bamberg and Denmark.

He was succeeded by attorney Justin Bamberg in 2014.

Sellars began woking as a CNN commentator during the 2016 presidential election, in which he supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

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His father, Cleveland Sellers, is a civil rights activist who served seven months in prison after protesting against a segregated bowling alley in Orangeburg, S.C in 1968. Police killed three protesters, and the event has since been known as the Orangeburg Massacre.

While I Breathe, I Hope encapsulates so much,” Sellers said in a statement. “I think one of the things my father’s generation and my father taught me, specifically, is you always have to maintain some semblance of hope even when it’s at its darkest hour.”

The film was directed by Orangeburg native Emily Harrold. It has been screened at DOC NYC, the Cleveland Film Festival, the New Orleans Film Festival, and South Carolina’s Indie Grits Film Festival.

After the movie, Sellers and his father will discuss race relations in the state and beyond in “Palmetto Scene” at 7:30 p.m.

More screening and streaming information will be available at bakarisellersdocumentary.com.


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