USDA official clears her name amidst race, politics and media

Two days after Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from the Agriculture Department, she’s been offered a new job there. It’s a labyrinthine story involving race, politics and the role activists play in the media. Andrew Breitbart, a conservative activist, who on Monday posted a two-minute clip on his Web site, BigGovernment.com, of Sherrod giving a speech to a chapter of the NAACP. Sherrod at the time was – on Monday, she was the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development director for Georgia.

This was a potent clip for conservative activists, because Andrew Breitbart – who posted it – had been trying to argue that the NAACP was, itself racist, after the NAACP had just criticized the Tea Party for racism.

The clip was all over cable news and the Obama administration pretty quickly asked Sherrod to resign, which she did.

Well, she went from villain to hero pretty much overnight when the full tape came out. It turned out this clip was from a 40 minute speech that was a redemption tale, about how she overcame her initial prejudices, to understand that race is not whats important.

Listen to this full report and a clip of Sherrod at NPR