A year later, Sherrod won't go away

Erik S. Lesser/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST - Shirley Sherrod, a 63-year-old grandmother, says she has not chosen the role of political gadfly.

By Krissah Thompson,
WashPost
Published: June 15

ALBANY, Ga. — In the year since she was fired from her federal job after being falsely accused of reverse racism, Shirley Sherrod has become the ubiquitous face of the Obama administration’s misstep on race. And she won’t go away.

Before she was ousted, Sherrod had been a low-key U.S. Department of Agriculture bureaucrat and farmers advocate, traversing peanut and pecan farms on the back highways of southwest Georgia. Now, that life has been replaced with political notoriety, negotiations with lawyers and agents, a book deal with a New York publisher and a fresh offer to advise the Obama administration on civil rights.

“I often wonder, ‘Why me?’ ” Sherrod said, piloting her black Lexus through the streets of Albany on a recent afternoon. “To be thrust in the public eye is not what I wanted, but I’ve always had to do what I had to do.”

Sherrod was rudely ousted by USDA officials in July after blogger Andrew Brietbart — back in the news recently for his role in Rep. Anthony Weiner’s lewd-texting scandal — released excerpts of a Sherrod speech. The video, which had been edited, made it appear she had withheld funds from a white farmer because of his race.

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