[Guest post by Lee Stranahan]

BET is reporting that Shirley Sherrod is back to working with the USDA…

This week, Sherrod has decided to attack racism herself, and she’s going back to the USDA to do it. Following the release of a new report last week that found the USDA continues to be poisoned by an ugly vein of racism and prejudice, Sherrod announced Saturday that she is going to be an Agriculture contract employee tasked with improving the relationship with the USDA and minority farmer and ranchers.

The typically laudatory piece about Mrs. Sherrod ties this directly into Pigford…

In December, President Obama signed into law a multibillion dollar Pigford case settlement, a lawsuit settlement decades in the making that finally gave some satisfaction to Black farmers, who had for years suffered poor treatment at the hands of the USDA. With Sherrod now back at Agriculture, the hope is that a lawsuit like Pigford will never be filed again. It’s hard enough to be a farmer anymore, regardless of what color you are. That Sherrod is well aware of the racism alive and well in this country bodes well for the forgotten farmers under her purview.

With this turn of events, I think it’s time for me to start writing about Shirley Sherrod in some depth.

Of course, a tremendous amount has already been written about Shirley Sherrod and the circumstances that brought her to national prominence. Much of it is incorrect and some of that is wrong intentionally. Fables have sprung up about her and her story, often to forward a certain political narrative.

In the past few months, I have interviewed a number of people who know Mrs. Sherrod directly – farmers, attorneys and other people who have worked for or with her. I’m not planning to do a “definitive portrait” of her and I’d be crazy if I thought I could end all the controversy once and for all.

What I do believe I can do is to untangle some of the myths and inaccuracies that have come up in the story of Mrs. Sherrod. I’m not interesting in jumping to conclusions; I’m interested in uncovering facts. I’m going to lay out details about Mrs. Sherrod and the controversy about her forced resignation, especially as it relates to the Pigford settlement, in a clear, linear format. You won’t be getting sound bites. In many cases, I’ll be posting links or video clips that you should investigate yourself. I think you’ll find that much of the Sherrod story is much more complex than the media narrative that’s sprung up around her.

I think you’ll also see that much of the story about Mrs. Sherrod has served to further the cover-up of the Pigford scandal. As you’ll see, there’s evidence that Mrs. Sherrod has been told about the fraud in Pigford by a number of people. I’ve found no indication that she’s done anything about it. I find the fact that she’s now working with the USDA on ‘outreach’ to be ominous and bad news for the legitimate black farmers who were wronged in the Pigford settlement.

Thanks in advance for your participation and comments as I roll this story out over the next few weeks.

– Lee Stranahan