[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 175 (Monday, November 14, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1131-E1132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN MEMORY OF REVEREND CHARLES MELVIN SHERROD

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, November 14, 2022

  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart and 
solemn remembrance that I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding 
man of God, iconic civil rights pioneer, dedicated leader and friend of 
longstanding, Rev. Charles Melvin Sherrod. Sadly, Rev. Sherrod 
transitioned from labor to reward on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at the 
age of 85. He leaves in his wake many heavy hearts among his family, 
friends, community and across the nation. A homegoing service 
celebrating his life was held Saturday, October 15, 2022 at Mount Zion 
Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia at 11:00 a.m.
  Charles Sherrod was born on January 2, 1937 in rural Surry, Virginia 
to the late Mr. Raymond Sherrod and Ms. Martha Mae Gibson. After moving 
with his grandmother and siblings to nearby Petersburg, Charles would 
go on to become president of his student body at the all-black Peabody 
High School where he played sports, participated in theatre, and served 
as school chaplain (Quiros, 2022). Having heard the call to God's 
ministry at an early age, his strong Christian faith steeled his 
resolve to challenge the stain of racial segregation in the Jim Crow 
south and in 1954 at the age of 17, he participated in a kneel-in at a 
segregated white church.
  Following graduation from high school, Charles attended Virginia 
Union University in Richmond where he earned a Bachelor's in Sociology 
and a Master's in Theology. In February 1960, he and 33 other student 
activists staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of Thalhimer's 
Department Store in downtown Richmond, were arrested and became known 
as the ``Richmond 34''. In April of that year, Sherrod and other 
students attended a meeting at Shaw University in Raleigh, North 
Carolina where the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was 
founded. Sherrod volunteered to be placed anywhere and was sent by the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference to Albany in Southwest Georgia 
as SNCC's first field secretary along with Cordell Reagon and Charles 
Jones.
  Working with others in Albany, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 
he launched a full assault against racial violence and segregation 
through nonviolent demonstrations and the registration of thousands of 
disenfranchised Black Americans in the region. Unfortunately, Police 
Chief Laurie Prichett, ``unlike so many other Southern lawmen, avoided 
the spectacle of publicly attacking protesters'' and just jailed 
successive waves of them in separate remote locations in surrounding 
counties until there were no more protesters (Quiros, 2022). The 
``Albany Movement,'' as it was called, ended and Dr. King left, but 
Sherrod persevered with successful Black voter registration. 
Ultimately, within months the Albany City Commission voted to repeal 
all segregation laws from its books. Charles Sherrod continued his work 
in Albany, Americus, Moultrie, and other cities, later changing the 
focus to school integration.
  In 1964, Sherrod left Albany and went to Union Theological Seminary 
in New York to earn a Master's of Divinity. Meanwhile, he impacted the 
greater American Civil Rights Movement by recruiting for the 1963 March 
on Washington and marching for voting rights in Selma on Bloody Sunday. 
He returned to Albany and brought with him white seminarians to create 
a moral society where Black and white Americans could live and work 
together in unity and peace (Quiros, 2022). By 1966 SNCC became more 
militant, the Black Power Movement emerged and Sherrod broke with SNCC 
and worked with the Georgia Freedom Project (Quiros, 2022). Also in 
1966, Charles Sherrod married Shirley Miller of Baker County and they 
founded a farming collective, New Communities, which was the largest 
Black-owned plot in the United States where they worked the land and 
helped people (Quiros, 2022).
  Unfortunately, a severe drought occurred in 1980 and the Sherrods 
were repeatedly denied help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 
the farm was taken by foreclosure (Quiros, 2022). Devastated by the 
loss of the farm, Charles and Shirley nevertheless continued their work 
in southwest Georgia. Charles was elected to the Albany City Commission 
serving 14 years, was a prison chaplain and a professor at Albany State 
University.

[[Page E1132]]

  The Sherrod's sued USDA, alleging racial discrimination and were 
awarded a settlement for wrongful dispossession of New Communities; 
they used the money to purchase Cypress Pond Plantation, an antebellum 
plantation now managed by descendants of slaves, to help rural Black 
landowners profit from farming and to be a model for solving the 
nation's affordable housing shortage (Quiros, 2022). ``From marching in 
the Albany Movement, being beaten and jailed, registering rural folks 
to vote, serving in local politics, and founding New Communities,'' 
wrote Professor Ansley L. Quiros in a piece published by the Washington 
Post, ``Sherrod stayed with the course of freedom and the beloved 
community until his death'' (2022).
  Rev. Charles M. Sherrod accomplished much in his life, but none would 
be possible without the grace of God and the love and support of his 
wife, Shirley; his two children, Russia and Kenyatta; his 5 
grandchildren, and other family and loved ones who will miss him 
dearly.
  Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues in the House of 
Representatives join my wife, Vivian and me, along with the 730,000 
people of the 2nd Congressional District of Georgia in honoring the 
life and legacy of Rev. Charles Melvin Sherrod and in extending our 
deepest condolences to his family, friends and all who mourn his loss. 
May they be consoled and comforted by an abiding faith and the Holy 
Spirit in the days, weeks and months ahead.

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 13, 2022]

       A Vital Civil Rights Activist you Never Heard of Has Died

                         (By Ansley L. Quiros)

       Charles Melvin Sherrod died on Tuesday at the age of 85 in 
     Albany, Ga., a place he went to in 1961 and never left. If 
     you are not from southwest Georgia, his name might not be 
     familiar. But Charles Sherrod is the most important civil 
     rights figure you've never heard of. Recovering his story 
     offers us a chance not only to honor a civil rights hero, but 
     also to better understand the struggle for freedom to which 
     he committed himself for so long.
       Sherrod was born on Jan. 2, 1937, in Surry, Va., a place he 
     described as a ``speck.'' He never knew his father and was 
     raised primarily by his grandmother within a broad community 
     of friends and cousins. Even as a young child, Sherrod 
     possessed a deep faith in God and a precocious theological 
     imagination. Probably inspired by the sermons he heard at 
     Mount Olive Baptist Church, he would often play church, 
     preaching to other children and soon sensing a real call to 
     the ministry. ``I was preaching when I was about 6 years 
     old,'' Sherrod told me, adding, ``I was born a preacher.'' He 
     would carry that preacher's zeal and deep moral vision with 
     him for the rest of his life.
       Despite the racism and suffocating poverty he experienced 
     in childhood, Sherrod excelled in school. He attended the 
     all-Black Peabody High School where he played sports, acted 
     in plays and served as student body president and school 
     chaplain. Sherrod then attended Virginia Union University 
     where he earned his undergraduate degree in sociology, and 
     then an M.A. in theology, fulfilling his ambition to become a 
     minister.
       During this time, Sherrod's Christian commitments first led 
     him to challenge the dehumanization of Jim Crow. He 
     participated in a ``kneel-in'' at a segregated church in 1954 
     and later joined a picket in front of Thalhimer's department 
     store. ``I saw the [lynching] rope in my mind,'' he 
     confessed, but he also felt a sense of responsibility since 
     people were ``coming to me, asking me for leadership.''
       Shenod was a natural leader: smart and calm with a ready, 
     broad smile.
       In April 1960, his civil rights activities took Sherrod to 
     a meeting at Shaw University, where the Student Nonviolent 
     Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded. SNCC's vision--
     nonviolence, collective action and the pursuit of a beloved 
     community in which all people are afforded dignity, respect 
     and care--appealed to Sherrod's calling, both to Christianity 
     and racial justice. After the meeting, Sherrod told Ella 
     Baker, the veteran activist who was then the executive 
     secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
     who convened the students, that ``I'd be willing to be placed 
     anywhere.'' She sent him to southwest Georgia, a place W.E.B. 
     Du Bois had once called the ``Egypt of the Confederacy,'' 
     where he would spend the next six decades working for 
     freedom.
       Sherrod arrived in Albany as SNCC's first field secretary, 
     ``full of zeal and empty of almost everything else.'' But 
     soon, he and the men and women of Albany launched a full-
     scale assault on Jim Crow unlike anything that had been seen 
     before. The Albany Movement, as it became known, was a 
     dramatic mobilization of people against racial violence and 
     segregation.
       In traditional accounts of the civil rights movement, 
     Albany is depicted as a failure, a place where the Rev. 
     Martin Luther King Jr. was outmaneuvered by Police Chief 
     Laurie Pritchett, who unlike so many other Southern lawmen, 
     avoided the spectacle of publicly attacking protesters, and 
     simply locked them up. This is why Sherrod's story is 
     crucial. The Albany Movement was only a failure when 
     considered from the perspective of King. The movement 
     continued after King left, making important, if slow, gains. 
     ``Nothing could stop the people,'' Sherrod said, ``certainly 
     not jail or the threat of jail, not [even] death.''
       Sherrod stayed, organizing in the rural counties, though he 
     did take a ``Movement sabbatical'' in 1964, heading to Union 
     Theological Seminary in New York. He earned a Master's of 
     Divinity and then returned to southwest Georgia, bringing 
     White seminarians with him as part of an exchange program 
     called the Student Interracial Ministry. For Sherrod, this 
     was a continuation of his civil rights work. He insisted, 
     always, that the end was not simply political but moral: a 
     society where Black and White Americans, all created in the 
     image of God, could live and work together in unity and 
     peace.
       In 1966, this philosophy led to a breach with SNCC, which 
     was moving away from interracialism and Christian nonviolence 
     and toward a more militant stance of Black Power. As Sherrod 
     put it: ``I didn't leave SNCC, SNCC left me.'' But he stayed 
     with the work of racial justice--voter registration and 
     community organizing--under the auspices of the Southwest 
     Georgia Freedom Project.
       In the late 1960s, Sherrod, along with his wife, Shirley 
     Miller Sherrod, a Baker County native whom he married in 
     1966, helped found New Communities, a farming collective that 
     was, at one point, the largest Black-owned plot of land in 
     the United States. For decades, New Communities was the 
     fulfillment of a dream for the Sherrods, a place where they 
     could work the land and care for others.
       But in the 1980s, when a devastating drought afflicted 
     southwest Georgia, they were repeatedly denied relief and the 
     farm was foreclosed on. In asking for a loan, Sherrod heard 
     from White loan officials the same message he'd heard from 
     segregationists decades earlier when trying to vote: ``Over 
     my dead body.''
       Though devastated by the loss of New Communities, the 
     Sherrods kept working faithfully in southwest Georgia. 
     Charles Sherrod had been elected to the Albany City Council 
     in 1976, a post he held until 1990, and also served as a 
     prison chaplain, while Shirley worked for the Federation of 
     Southern Cooperatives before being named the U.S. Department 
     of Agriculture Georgia Director of Rural Development in 2009. 
     Shirley was fired after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart 
     posted selectively edited, misleading video clips from a 
     speech she gave. The White House and Agriculture Secretary 
     Tom Vilsack apologized to Sherrod two days after her firing.
       After seeing her name dragged through the mud, Shirley got 
     better news. She heard about a class-action lawsuit, Pigford 
     v. Glickman II, alleging systemic racial discrimination 
     toward Black farmers by the USDA. The Sherrods filed a claim 
     and were awarded a settlement for the wrongful dispossession 
     of New Communities. They used the money to purchase a new 
     farm. It was a bittersweet moment.
       And one that reveals how long the Black freedom struggle 
     has been. Charles Sherrod embodied this enduring struggle 
     over the long haul, in all of its breadth and character. From 
     marching in the Albany Movement, being beaten and jailed in 
     Americus, Ga., registering rural folks to vote, founding New 
     Communities, to serving in local politics, Sherrod stayed 
     with the cause of freedom and beloved community until his 
     death.
       His story reminds us that the work of racial justice is 
     ongoing, that it occurs in rural spaces as well as urban ones 
     and that it can look like political organizing, preaching, 
     farming or just the ordinary miracle of Black love in 
     America.

                          ____________________