reporter: here on her family farm in baker county, georgia, shirley sherrod s experiences as a young girl would shape her professional life. with black owned farms heading toward extinction, sherrod wanted to help. that s when she made up her mind that she was going to stay here and try to help make a difference in this community. she s always been determined, a strong person. reporter: in 1967 shirley and charles set out to change the land literally, 6,000 acres to be exact. they helped create a land trust for black farmers with a long-range plan to build wealth. it was called new communities. one acre at a time it grew into
of her job with the agriculture department and then as the facts came out an apology. in the next hour you re going to meet a humble and remarkable woman who did everything right but still fell victim to a vicious smear. i spent the day to find out who is shirley sherrod and afterward a panel discussion on what this reveals about race in america. shirley sherrod was accused of racism. did you discriminate? shirley sherrod caught on tape saying something very disturbing. i told them get the whole tape and look at the whole tape. we begin tonight with the smearing of shirley sherrod. this is showing racism at an naacp event. he didn t care who he destroyed. shirley sherrod must resign immediately. i don t know who brought up the mess. this is a good woman. she s been put through hello.
i was trying to look at going to school in the north. back then they said a woman would find a husband at college. i thought, okay, i m not going to risk even going to college in the south because i don t want no husband from the south. i want to go north. reporter: meanwhile, her father was on the virge of fulfilling one of his dreams. with five daughters, his wife was pregnant again. and he was sure this would be a boy. he had a room built. the room back there was blue. he said, this is going to be for my boy. and he had planned he told me, he said, when we go pick the baby up out of the hospital, i m going to get you a brand-new car and bring my baby home in a car. but the family s dreams were about to be shattered. in 1965, in this field, shirley s father and a white neighbor reportedly butted heads. a dispute over who owned which cattle. shirley says witnesses saw the confrontation.
hip-hop generation representing the blog gers online. when they criticized i mean the naacp. when they criticized the tea raci they asked them to cleanse following t following the lead of black bloggers who have been calling for this for over a year. they initially were received a strong response from black bloggers. now the hip-hop generation has soured somewhat. the apology helped. at the same time then, you have shirley sherrod who represents the current membership of the naacp. she s 62. she s in that age. women like shirley sherrod are the ung sung heroes of the civil rights movement. they re on the bridge between the old jim crow world and the world they create. how do they keep shirley sherrod basically engaged their struggle. mark, i m going to give you the last word. where do we e go from here. when we ran earlier a section a portion of this,
but i went. and they told me first that he had been shot. the murder that changed shirley sherrod s life forever. shirley sherrod s life forever. when we come back. y intake