Shirley Sherrod, Exploiter of Black Farm Workers and Children

Another slime ball in the Obama Administration is being exposed but where is the MSM investigative reporting?
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The Story of Annie Hawkins and New Communities, Inc.

The Other Side of Shirley Sherrod

By RON WILKINS

Counterpunch

Imagine farm workers doing back breaking labor in the sweltering sun, sprayed with pesticides and paid less than minimum wage. Imagine the United Farm Workers called in to defend these laborers against such exploitation by management. Now imagine that the farm workers are black children and adults and that the managers are Shirley Sherrod, her husband Rev. Charles Sherrod, and a host of others. But it’s no illusion; this is fact.

The swirling controversy over the racist dismissal of Shirley Sherrod from her USDA post has obscured her profoundly oppositional behavior toward black agricultural workers in the 1970s. What most of Mrs. Sherrod’s supporters are not aware of is the elitist and anti-black-labor role that she and fellow managers of New Communities Inc. (NCI) played. These individuals under-paid, mistreated and fired black laborers–many of them less than 16 years of age–in the same fields of southwest Georgia where their ancestors suffered under chattel slavery.

When I first noticed the story of her firing and the association of Shirley Sherrod’s name with the rural black poor and concern for “black land-loss”, I wondered if the person being praised was the same Shirley Sherrod whom I knew. One piece posted on the July 23rd Alternet and captioned “Shirley Sherrod and the black Land Struggle” even claimed that she “devoted her entire life to economic justice”. The mistreatment of black workers at NCI under the Sherrods is a matter of record that contradicts this claim.

If confession is good for the soul, then Mrs. Sherrod took a first step toward her redemption by admitting the error of her ways in her earlier attitudes toward poor white farmers. Mrs. Sherrod says she began to see poverty as more central than race. So, should indigent black child farm laborers warrant less reflection by Mrs. Sherrod? What lessons does she have to share from her tenure as management when she had power over her own people working under deplorable conditions at the same New Communities, Inc.(NCI) identified in the current issue? Shirley Sherrod could have included this chapter of her history in the same confession speech. Justice and integrity require at least as much accountability from Mrs. Sherrod to the poor black farm workers of NCI as to the white farmers she came to befriend. This lack of full disclosure of the whole truth is a “sin of omission” that trivializes the suffering of poor black farm workers and exacerbates the offenses of NCI.

Shirley Sherrod was New Communities Inc. store manager during the 1970s. As such, Mrs. Sherrod was a key member of the NCI administrative team, which exploited and abused the workforce in the field. The 6,000 acre New Communities Inc. in Lee County promoted itself during the latter part of the 1960s and throughout the 70s as a land trust committed to improving the lives of the rural black poor. Underneath this facade, the young and old worked long hours with few breaks, the pay averaged sixty-seven cents an hour, fieldwork behind equipment spraying pesticides was commonplace and workers expressing dissatisfaction were fired without recourse.

The unfortunate story of Mrs. Annie Hawkins and her family in particular is instructive. Persuaded by NCI that their lot would be improved, the Hawkins family stole away from the Georgia plantation that they had called home. After suffering abuse meted out to them and others at NCI, Mrs. Hawkins sadly stated that, “We stole away from one plantation, but just ended up on another.” For her courageous role in demonstrations against the Sherrods and NCI management, Annie Hawkins and her family were fired and kicked out of the house that they were promised. My last encounter with an ailing Mrs. Hawkins took place several years ago in a nursing home where she resided.

Worker protest at New Communities eventually garnered some assistance from the United Farm Workers Union in nearby Florida in the person of one of its most formidable organizers, black State Director, the late Mack Lyons. The September 28, 1974 UFW newspaper El Malcriado, page two, reported on the worker’s strike (“Children Farm Workers Strike Black Co-op” www.farmworkermovement.org/ufwarchives) and the UFW stepped in to protect black farm workers from exploitation by NCI. Fearful of both UFW efforts to unionize NCI’s labor force and scrutiny by the Georgia State Wage and Hour Division, the Sherrods and NCI management hastily issued checks in varying amounts to strikers to makeup ostensibly for minimum wage differentials. It is bitter irony that the Sherrods have succeeded in being awarded $300,000 following a discrimination lawsuit, while Mrs. Hawkins and other impoverished NCI black laborers whom NCI exploited were never adequately compensated for their “pain and suffering”.

While it is true that loan discrimination and relentless creditors can be cited for the eventual demise of New Communities Inc. in 1985, NCI’s unfair labor practices and poor leadership, were equally, if not more, to blame. Ask Shirley Sherrod about this part of her history. I know this story well, for I was one of those workers at NCI.

Ron Wilkins is a former organizer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1974, under an assumed name, he hired-on at New Communities Inc. The Emergency Land Fund, an Atlanta-based black land retention organization, which shared oversight responsibility for NCI’s progress, wanted to know the basis for NCI’s continued poor performance. The author’s secondary purpose was to develop agricultural skills. For his role in organizing NCI’s workers, management eventually fired him from his $40 per week position, evicted him from the rent-free shack on NCI property and orchestrated his arrest, on bogus charges, by FBI agents and Lee County, Georgia Sheriff’s deputies in the midst of an NCI labor protest. The charges were later dropped. Presently he is an Africana Studies professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He can be reached at: rwilkins@csudh.edu

Shirley Sherrod and Her Husband, Charles Sherrod

Riehlworldview.com


Sherrod: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms ..."

Why would Obama appoint a racist black-Marxist to the USDA, fire her in kneejerk fashion, then grovel on the phone to her, offering her a promotion?

First, a note of heartfelt appreciation for Joan Walsh of Salon. Her moving post on Charles Sherrod - in defense of his wife, Shirley - provided the inspiration required to dust off my Google skills. I simply had to fulfill her stated desire to share the actual words of Civil Rights icon Charles Sherrod with her readers, so touched was I by her profound tribute. And she's been swamped on TV, justifying Shirley Sherrod calling Fox and Andrew Breitbart racist. I can only hope she will be kind enough to direct her readers here, so we can all share his unique wisdom on race relations together, as one. That is, after all, the way it should be, is it not, Joan?

The civil rights heroism of Charles Sherrod

Andrew Breitbart sure picked the wrong people to symbolize black "racism."
If there's anyone more clueless about our civil rights history than Breitbart, as well as more abusive to it, I'm challenged to think of who it might be. He tests my commitment to nonviolent social change, but I'll share the work of Charles Sherrod to remember my values.

If I get a chance to talk to Charles Sherrod, I'll let him tell you what he thinks, in his own words, here.

Okay, Joan, though I do confess to being somewhat puzzled by the first quote I stumbled upon, especially as it came relatively recently - a full year after America had installed its first black administration in the White House.

Charles Sherrod: "We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections."

Gee, Joan, can you tell me what's so heroic about telling a room full of young black minds not even out in the world, yet - that if they ever embrace political, or socio-economic ideas that don't jibe with your hero's, the one elevated in a room before them, that they will be denounced as race-traitors? That is what Uncle Tom means, after all. What REALLY is heroic in that? It looks to me like what your hero does is build up their black identity to an extreme, then sends them a message that, if they don't vote, or act the way he wants them to, he and his community make them outcasts, stripping that very identity from them as traitors to their race. Is that the message heroic Civil Rights leaders are passing on to young blacks today? It sounds like it to me, Joan.

Maybe it's your hero's racism there that keeps young blacks on the Democrat plantation year after after, generation after generation - and not some non-existent racism you imagine on the other side. Why is your hero poisoning young minds, Joan? Or, is that just too much for you to grasp?

Shouldn't young minds be taught to think and explore the world for themselves, and not be infected with such poison perhaps before they even know who they are? Or, are you cool with your hero, there, Joan? How are you going to rationalize, not my reaction to your hero, but the not so subtle message he is delivering to those young black people looking up to him in a room?

But then, and I must admit to this being extremely troubling for me, Joan - I learned from your hero, Charles Sherrod, that because you are a white liberal, I shouldn't actually be reading you. See, I thought that when white liberals like you in the mainstream media provided significant coverage to black candidates at election time, it was because you wanted to be fair, perhaps even wanting to help them out. I would have never guessed that you were actually engaged in a nation-wide conspiracy to invoke fear and hatred into your white readers so that, come election day, they'd be all riled up at the black candidate, turning out to beat him.

But that is precisely what your hero tells me you are up to, Joan. Here I thought you were only trying to be fair. But then, I guess, you are white.

Charles Sherrod: "The tears that we've shed, so many times.... When the TV and the newspaper comes out the day of an election, or the day before an election. And tell white folk, all over, wherever we are running somebody for an office ... that blacks are going to TAKE that office over. And thousands are coming to the polls. And you gotta get it."

Geez, Joan. I'm really kind of disappointed in you and your hero after all this. I'll just let him tell you himself. I'm going to move on down below and write on some interesting things I discovered about the Sherrods and their New Communities project. I mean, racism is one thing, ... but separatist black-Marxist liberation politics? Is that what this is? Wow, you sure does have some interesting heroes for a white gal, Joan. I'll give you that.

Here are some words for your blog from Charles Sherrod, Joan:




Given the length of this, already - I'm going to cut to the chase - mostly just giving you the facts. In the video below, Sherrod claims they couldn't get funding because they were a corporation. He says nothing about racism being involved - though he does again display some of his own. But that is the grounds they sued upon - racism. And his son offers two views of what New Communities actually is, or was - family farm, non-profit corp., black-Marxist commune? Take your pick.

Kenyatta Sherrod remembers when his family’s farm was in foreclosure in the early 1980s. It was huge -- 6,000 acres -- and several people lived on it, raising vegetables and livestock that they would share with each other. Though several people had a stake in it, the property was in the Sherrods' names. “They lost the farm,” Kenyatta Sherrod said. “Life was different after that. We didn’t have a lot after that.”

The Sherrods also have a daughter, one with a rather interesting name. Pretty cool naming your kid after the Berlin Wall coming down, right? Well, not quite, unfortunately.

Son Kenyatta and daughter Russia defended their mother from charges of racism which led to her resignation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture position as director of its Rural Development program in Georgia on Tuesday.
Further research indicates she graduated high school in 1985. If she were 18 at the time, that would mean she was born in 1967. That's an interesting time for an American to name their child Russia - and it also happens to be the year Russia celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution. Hmm. But her actual birth year is unconfirmed, for now.

Russia Sherrod 1981-1985

But, is anyone else starting to get a Jeremiah Wright-like vibe here folks? I am. And if so, why would Obama appoint a racist black-Marxist to the USDA, fire her in kneejerk fashion, then grovel on the phone to her, offering her a promotion. By the way, she may just go fishing, instead.

The two joked afterward, Shirley said now that's she's unemployed she might have a little bit of time to do a little fishing a favorite hobby.

Mark Knoller mentioned a potential wrongful termination lawsuit in passing. And now the media and the administration seem intent on making her disappear. One theory on that I've heard is, they don't want people asking questions about her lawsuit. What I'm wondering is, maybe they don't want people asking questions about Obama.

He worshiped with Jeremiah Wright for years. He potentially appointed a racist black liberationist Marxist to the USDA. Just how many of them does he have around him, as he sits in the WH waging war on capitalism? And, finally, what might all those college documents of his they won't let us see tell us about him ... especially given this?

Ultimately, given all this now beginning to come out as a result of Andrew Breitbart's original work makes him a hero in my book. These are the tough questions the press doesn't even want to ask. It brings to the front important issues on race and racism, black, or otherwise, the press and the WH don't wish to confront. But that's what's suppose to happen in a genuinely free, open and democratic society.

As things stand, an extremely controversial woman is sitting there with a free ticket for a promotion at the USDA from an incompetent in the WH who created this mess by appointing her, then firing her too quickly for some reason. This isn't Breitbart's mess. This is now Obama's mess to clean up, or justify, as far as I'm concerned. Heckuva job, Barry. Heckuva job. At least we're starting to get used to it. I believe the word is: incompetent.

Obama really does seem to have some of the strangest friends, just like Joan Walsh, of Sherrod's white media conspiracy against blacks. Who'd a thunk it?

The Examiner piece referenced at end of video is here.