Скачать или смотреть Shirley Sherrod's Fight for Civil Rights and Farmers

With strength and intuition, Shirley Sherrod has channeled tragedy into a decades-long career to advocate for fairness, justice and equality in America’s agricultural system.


As a Black woman who grew up in Georgia, Shirley’s life and career are inextricably linked to the Civil Rights Movement, fighting particularly hard for the rights of Black farmers and other landowners in the South.


In the decades following the Civil War, farming and land ownership became essential facets of Black Americans’ newly-won citizenship, particularly in the South. Black land ownership peaked in 1910 when 218,000 Black farmers owned 15 million acres of farmland. But by the turn of the century, these numbers declined to about 18,000 Black farmers owning only 2.3 million acres.


The dramatic decline in Black land ownership was no accident. Much of this loss is attributed to systemic discrimination and racism, which was all too common in both civil society and in the government, including at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Shirley and her husband Charles experienced USDA discrimination in the form of farm loan denials, which ultimately cost them the farmland they were trying to protect.


Learn more about Shirley Sherrod and Black land loss at https://www.farmaid.org/blog/shirley-...