Thomas J.(T. J.) Sellers was born the son of Thomas and Rachel L. Sellers at 320 5th S. W. Street in Charlottesville, Virginia. His father, Thomas Sellers, was a janitor at a local bank in 1910 in Charlottesville. His mother, Rachel L. Sellers, was unemployed in 1910, but over the course of the next few decades, she became a domestic in 1920, a pantry maid at the Gleason Hotel in 1922, and then a domestic until her death. Rachel Sellers birthed four children of which T. J. Sellers was the youngest. T. J. Sellers' siblings in order from the oldest to the youngest were Ines, Maudjeska, and George.

T. J. Sellers was born between 1910 and 1913. The earliest data on Sellers found by the researcher dates back to 1929, in which Sellers had the occupation of a helper and stilled lived at 320 5th S. W. with his mother, Rachel. In 1931, Sellers is a shoeshiner at a local commercial barber shop. Between the years 1931 and 1934, there were drastic changes in Sellers' life--in those years, Sellers married a woman named Eleanora and moved to 909 Anderson Street in Charlottesville, and he became the editor of The Reflector, Charlottesville's only Negro weekly newspaper at that time. The Reflector, which is the backbone of this current research on early twentieth century African-American life in Charlottesville, is an African-American newspaper that mainly expresses the thoughts of Sellers about the African-American Race on a national scale and the local issues and happenings facing African-Americans in Charlottesville in the early to mid-1930s. In every issue of The Reflector, Sellers states that The Reflector is "a journal of Calendar and Comment and Charlottesville's only Negro Weekly, published to reflect the progress of our community and Race."

Considering The Reflector as integral to piecing together the puzzle of African-American life in Charlottesville in the early twentieth century, one has to determine the importance and significance of the Negro Press, as a whole, on African-American communities of that time. The Negro Press or African-American newspapers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave a voice to local African-American communities, promoting change and championing important causes and leaders. The following are two articles from The Reflector which discuss the role of The Reflector and the Negro Press, respectively.

After his time as editor of The Reflector, Sellers becomes a student in a Teacher's College between 1936 and 1940. From 1940-1944, Sellers is a teacher at a local school. Then in 1945, Sellers becomes the District Manager of the Richmond Beneficial Life Insurance Company on 400 Commerce Street in Charlottesville.

While serving as the District Manager of the African-American Insurance Company, it seems that Sellers founded The Albemarle-Charlottesville Tribune, another African-American newspaper. Also, in the early 1950s, Sellers became the mentor of Mrs. Sarah Patton Boyle, the author of The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian's Stand in Time of Transition. Boyle, of Charlottesville, Virginia was a white woman who came to realize that the "way of life" she inherited from her Southern ancestors was incompatible with her concepts of justice and Christianity. During the 1950s and 1960s, she worked tirelessly as an activist for African-American civil rights. Her book, which addresses her awakening to the struggle of African-Americans, is dedicated to T. J. Sellers who gave her much insight from the African-American perspective in writing the book. (The book is also dedicated to Chad Walsh, and Ted Evans.)

T. J. Sellers made a big impact in Charlottesville and, unfortunately, it seems that he left Charlottesville for Brooklyn, N. Y. some time between 1953 and 1955. Research is still being done to find out what happened to Sellers. In fact, recently, it was discovered that Sellers may still be alive in Brooklyn!!!