Learning About Grace from Shirley Sherrod

The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote an article about Shirley Sherrod.  Ms. Sherrod is the FORMER Agricultural Department official who was forced to resign (by Blackberry, no less) after comments she had made about race to an NAACP Audience, last March, I believe.


What started the hoopla was two minute, edited version of an over 40 minute speech.  You can see Andrew Breitbart's edited version here:

You can see the whole thing here:

I don't want to fight against a caricature of Ms. Sherrod or lift her up as a saint.  I'd have trouble hearing some of her words out of context.  Partly, it's just the way I speak. And, frankly, it's not the way I listen.

What I find interesting is what was talked about after it all "hit the fan" over the past week or so.  You see, in 1965 Shirley's understanding of race was shaped in a way that was sure to have an effect on her and her ability to help poor persons regardless of race. 

That year, 1965, her father was shot and killed by a white man in a dispute over cows, the family says.

That year, she was one of the first black students to integrate the high school in Baker County in rural southwest Georgia.

That year, she decided to become involved in the civil rights movement in that area of the state.

And in later years, like some of the farmers she helped when she worked for a non-profit, Sherrod and her husband lost a group farm to bankruptcy.

Now the former Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture is fending off allegations that she is racist because of something she said during a speech before the NAACP last spring. It was a few sentences in a story she told about an epiphany that changed her way of thinking two dozen years ago; the problems of farmers were not defined as black vs. white but “poor vs. those who have.”

How did the shooting happen that had affected her so greatly?

Sherrod’s father, Hosie Miller, had a dispute with a man over cows that had come into his pasture. The neighbor insisted that three of Miller’s cows were his. Miller said he would call the “law” to settle the dispute. As Hosie Miller was closing the gate, he was shot in the back, the family says.

Grace Miller said that the neighbor was not held accountable.

I think we can learn about grace here from Shirley Sherrod...not only in how she's handled the mess of her firing.  I think we can learn that we can change.  I think we can learn to fight FOR those who we might be tempted to fight AGAINST.  I think we can work for justice even though we've been wounded along the way. 


I can't say I know what she's feeling.  I can't say I understand the plight of black persons in America.  I can't say that race-talk makes me feel particularly comfortable even if I think it's necessary.  But I can say that I'm impressed that someone who was so wounded by her history can reach out beyond it to help the poor no matter what their color.

There's a lesson in grace here...

and probably a lesson in media as well.