How a Black Farming Community Found Justice
Black families in the South are doing important work to continue the legacy of Black farming communities.
Shirley Sherrod co-founded New Communities, a Black farming community in rural Georgia. But at one time, she wanted to leave farming far behind.
As a teenager, Sherrod dreamed of leaving the South. Her mind traveled North—away from the White sheriff, known as “The Gator,” who ruthlessly and violently patrolled the area’s Black residents. Away from her family’s farm and the backbreaking days spent picking cotton. Away from the segregated schools.
“My goal was to try to get as far away from that whole system and as far away from the farm as I could,” she says.
But in March 1965, her senior year of high school, Sherrod’s father was shot by a White farmer during a d...