RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events USDA Official Brags About Reverse Discrimination

Farmer's wife says fired USDA official helped save their land; USDA will not rehire

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The wife of a white Georgia farmer on Tuesday defended a federal agriculture official who lost her job for saying she once withheld help to the couple on the basis of race.

The former official, Shirley Sherrod, "kept us out of bankruptcy," said Eloise Spooner, 82, of Iron City in southwest Georgia. Spooner, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, added she considers Sherrod a "friend for life." She and her husband, Roger Spooner, approached Sherrod for help in 1986 when Sherrod worked for a nonprofit that assisted farmers.

Sherrod, who is African-American, was asked to resign Monday night by a USDA official after videotaped comments she made in March at a local NAACP banquet surfaced on the Web. Recounting her dealings with the Spooners, Sherrod said she didn't help them as much as she could because of their race.

But Eloise Spooner said as far as she's concerned Sherrod worked tirelessly to help the couple hold onto their land as they faced bankruptcy.

Spooner said she spoke to Sherrod by phone Tuesday morning after the story hit cable news.

"She's very sad about it," Spooner said. "She told me she was so glad we talked. I just can't believe this is happening to her."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement Tuesday saying the controversy made Sherrod's position as a rural development director, a job she was appointed to last March, untenable.

"First, for the past 18 months, we have been working to turn the page on the sordid civil rights record at USDA and this controversy could make it more difficult to move forward on correcting injustices," Vilsack said. "Second, state rural development directors make many decisions and are often called to use their discretion. The controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia."

The NAACP, which had released a statement Monday critical of Sherrod, backtracked Tuesday, saying it was "snookered" by Andrew Breitbart, whose Web site biggovernment.com released the edited video. Breitbart did not respond to a request seeking comment.

"Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans," NAACP President Ben Jealous said in a statement. "The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition."

In the video (more than 43-minutes long in entirety), Sherrod told the crowd at the NAACP banquet in Douglas, Ga., that she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer whom she said was condescending when he came to her for aid.

"What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him," Sherrod said on the video, recorded "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."

Sherrod, in her first interview after the clip surfaced, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the video was selectively edited and.

She said the incident helped her get beyond issues of race.

"And I went on to work with many more white farmers," she said. "The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it's about the people who have and the people who don't."

Sherrod accused the USDA of cowering to right-wing media.

"They were just looking at what the Tea Party and what Fox (News) said, and thought it was too [politically] dangerous for them," Sherrod said of her former employer.

The Sherrod video surfaced a week after the NAACP issued a resolution calling some elements of the National Tea Party racist for comments allegedly made against President Obama and African-American congressmen during the health care debate.

Sherrod said it wouldn't have made any sense for her to espouse racist comments before the NAACP audience.

"There were some white people there. The mayor [of Douglas] was there," Sherrod recalled. "Why would I do something racist if they were there?"

Douglas Mayor Jackie Wilson told the AJC she introduced speakers at the banquet but left before Sherrod's speech.

Wilson said she did not hear of any controversy in the weeks following the banquet, adding she was shocked to learn of Sherrod's resignation.

"She's not someone I know extremely well, but I respected her and thought she was doing a good job. And she seemed to be a fair person," said Wilson. "I just hate that this kind of thing happened in Douglas."

Eloise Spooner said she'll stand up for her friend.

"She helped us and we're going to help them," she said.

--Staff writer Larry Hartstein contributed to this report.