Hard feelings about handling of Shirley Sherrod have deep roots in Georgia

[jaysunb]

By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau via Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Albany, Ga. — For Fredrick Hall, the soil of southwest Georgia has yielded bounties of peanuts, a hard-earned livelihood and a lifetime of adjusting to the whims of a higher power.

"I'm dependent on the Lord," Hall said recently, as the sun pounded down on his peanut crop, which he cannot afford to irrigate. "Right now, Lord, we could use some rain."

Hall grew up in the Jim Crow South — where he says a "plantation mentality" governed life in the surrounding farming community. So much has changed — but not enough, he said. For Hall and other black farmers here, progress seems to be inevitably followed by disappointment, and hope limited by the scars of the past.

Which perhaps explains Hall's reaction to the story of Shirley Sherrod — the hasty firing, the accusations of racism, the media frenzy, the repeated apologies.

The 62-year-old farmer recently sat in a booth at a roadside cafe, a haven from the afternoon heat. From underneath a fraying straw hat, he smiled wryly across his wide face and offered his analysis of Sherrod's story.

"America as usual," he said.

In 1969, the Sherrods and other leaders formed New Communities Inc., a cooperative farm run by committee. For the next 15 years, about a dozen black families lived and worked there.

"We shared what we had," Wilburn said. "We supported each other."

The farm, like many in the region, was battered by drought in the 1980s. Unlike other farms, New Communities' request for a federal emergency loan to build a small irrigation system was denied, without clear explanation, an arbitrator later found. The next year, 1982, the group decided to sell timber to help keep the farm afloat. But the USDA unexpectedly took the profits as a precondition for another loan. When New Communities applied for a loan in 1983, the agency requested a deed on the land as collateral. It took the deed, but gave nothing in return
By 1985, New Communities was bankrupt and the last of its farm, once nearly 6,000 acres, was sold.

more here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sherrod-georgia-20100804,0,4296762.story?page=2