Mrs. Sherrod was forced out after a story with videotape emerged in which she erroneously appeared to admit being discriminatory against a white farmer, when her speech had actually been about racial harmony and reconciliation. The videotape was made public by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who was involved in a public feud at the time with the NAACP. Breitbart used Mrs. Sherrod as a weapon to make a point, but the tape was later determined to be of a misunderstood situation from over 20 years ago and BEFORE Sherrod was a USDA government employee.
On Tuesday, Mrs. Sherrod met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who offered her the choice of her old job back within the department’s rural development office in Georgia, or a new job working on race relations in the Washington office. But despite Secretary Vilsak’s apology and hard pressed persuasion to return, Mrs. Sherrod declined both offers, saying “I think I can be helpful to him and the department if I just take a little break and look at how I can be more helpful in the future.”
However, Mrs. Sherrod wisely left the door open and the bridge unburned, saying she looked forward to having some sort of relationship with the department some time down the road, perhaps as a consultant.
