Shirley Sherrod has been advocating for civil rights since 1965.
This week, our host Ron gets help from Michael Sligh, longtime friend and fellow farm advocate, in interviewing Shirley about discrimination in ag.
The second part of this episode features Shirley at the 2017 Domestic Fair Trade Conference. She discusses 52 years of work, including black land loss, the connection between civil rights and food justice, the importance of racial justice in creating fair and sustainable agricultural supply chains, and more.
Shirley was born in Baker County, Georgia, in 1947 to Grace and Hosea (Hosie) Miller. Her father was murdered by a white farmer reportedly over a livestock dispute. No charges were ever returned against the shooter by an all-white grand jury. The tragic murder of her father when she was 17 years old had a profound impact on her life and led to her decision to stay in the south to work for change.
She attended Fort Valley State College then transferred to Albany State College. There she studied sociology while working for civil rights with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During this time, she married Reverend Charles Sherrod, one of the founding members of SNCC and the leader of SNCC’s work in southwest Georgia.
During the 1960s, Shirley and her husband helped form New Communities, Inc. The organization acquired 6,000 acres of land and became the first community land trust in the U.S. The project encountered difficulties in the opposition of area white farmers who accused participants of being communists, and also from Georgia’s segregationist governor, Lester Maddow, who prevented the federal government’s development funds from entering the state. A drought in the 1970s, fertilizer suppliers selling inferior products to the organization, and the inability to get timely government loans led to the project’s ultimate demise.
Shirley went on to work for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in 1985 to help black farmers keep their land.
In July 2010, she was forced to resign her position at USDA after conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart, posted video excerpts of an address she gave at a NAACP event. According to Breitbart, her comments showed how a federally appointed executive racially discriminated against a white farmer. The video set off a controversy and criticism of Shirley. Subsequent events showed the posted video was taken out of context and part of broader comments that conveyed a completely different meaning. The NAACP apologized for critical comments and her boss at USDA also apologized while offering her another job, which she later declined.
The interview was conducted on Dec. 15, 2017.
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