http://www.miscellanynews.com/2.1576/civil-rights-activists-honor-50-years-of-sncc-1.2384496
October 27, 2010
Former United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Georgia State
Director for Rural Development Shirley Sherrod and her husband, civil
rights leader and historian Charles Sherrod, will be taking part in a
panel discussion on Wednesday, November 3 entitled, "Reflections on
the Civil Rights Movement in a Changing American Society." The
discussion, which will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Sanders
Classroom's Spitzer Auditorium, is part of a series of events
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The panel discussion will focus on Mr. and Mrs. Sherrods' endeavors
to combat segregation in southwestern Georgia and to fight against
discrimination in United States agencies, such as the USDA, on the
basis of race and gender. Assistant Professor of Political Science
Sarita McCoy Gregory and Associate Professor of Art Lisa Collins will
serve as moderators.
Mrs. Sherrod began her fight against racial discrimination after her
father was murdered when she was 17 years old. The murderer, a white
man, was not prosecuted by the Georgia courts. She joined SNCC while
attending college in the 1960s, where she met her husband.
Together, they went on to found New Communities, Inc. in Georgia, a
land trust held with a number of other African-American families. At
the time, this 6000 acre tract of land was the largest black-owned
property in the United States. Unfortunately, this organization
failed during the 1970s due to opposition from white segregationists
in the state government as well as a draught which destroyed the
harvest. However, Mrs. Sherrod later worked with the Federation of
Southern Cooperatives and the Rural Development Leadership Network,
which aim to help African-American farmers keep their land.
Mrs. Sherrod was thrown into the national spotlight this past July,
when she was forced to resign from her position with the USDA for
allegedly making racist comments during an address she had given to
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in March of 2010.
A video clip posted by blogger Andrew Breitbard featured Sherrod
reminiscing on how she once considered not helping a farmer in need
of her organization's assistance because he was white.
As in the ACORN video, Sherrod's comments were heavily edited and
taken out of context; in the full speech, she admits that she was
wrong and has since learned from her mistakes. However, the truth was
not uncovered until after Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack forced
Sherrod to resign from her position at the USDA.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod were invited to campus by Professor of Religion
and Africana Studies Lawrence Mamiya, who knows both of them
personally through their shared work in the civil rights movement.
"[Mr. Sherrod] convinced 25 of us to do civil rights work in
southwest Georiga. We did voter registration, we also did community
organizing, [and] we also participated in protests and
demonstrations… Last year we had a reunion of the 25 of us who went
down [to Georgia]. That's where we renewed our friendship and
acquaintances again."
Mimiya proposed this event to the Africana Studies department after
attending the official SNCC 50th anniversary conference in April. "It
was an amazing celebration. And this is why I suggested to [the
Africana Studies Department] that we do something to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the founding of SNCC. That was such a significant
event in the history of the civil rights movement."
The event is sponsored by the Dean of the Faculty Lecture Committee,
the Africana Studies Program, the Department of Religion's Wood
Lecture Fund, the Department of History's C. Mildred Thompson Lecture
Fund, the Political Science, English, and Sociology departments, as
well as the Women's Studies Program.
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