Comments Cause USDA Official Her Job; The Help Desk
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Tony Harris. Top of the hour in the CNN NEWSROOM, where anything can happen. Here are some of the people behind today's top stories. Racial controversy. The former USDA official at the center of it speaks out about it.</s>SHIRLEY SHERROD, FORMER USDA OFFICIAL: In fact, they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia, yesterday. I had at least three calls telling me the White House wanted me to resign.</s>HARRIS: Ground Zero mosque plans to build just blocks away from a site of the 9/11 attacks stirs strong emotions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have we forgotten what happened at 9/11?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened that day is not Islam. What happened that day is terrorism.</s>HARRIS: You are online right now. We are, too. Josh Levs is following the top stories trending on the internet -- Josh.</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tony, a man was arrested at an airport with 18 monkeys hidden beneath his clothes. No joke, 18 monkeys. Details at CNN.com. Plus, your day could become part of a major Hollywood documentary. Just put a video on YouTube. I'm going to have the details this hour.</s>HARRIS: 18 monkeys?</s>LEVS: 18 monkeys, in his clothes.</s>HARRIS: Come on, man, you can't be making stuff up. All right. Let's get started with our lead story. An Agriculture Department official who resigned over remarks about a white farmer tells her side of the story. Shirley Sherrod said she was pressured to resign after videotape of her comments surfaced on conservative media.</s>SHERROD: I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white a person save their land. So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough, so that when he -- I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me. Either that, or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him. So, I took him to a white lawyer that had attended some of the training that we had provided because Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him.</s>HARRIS: Last hour, I talked live with Shirley Sherrod and the wife of the white farmer. She says she Sherrod not discriminate, and actually helped save their farm. I also asked Sherrod about her resignation. Here is a portion of the interview.</s>SHERROD: I know I didn't discriminate, and I made it very clear to the staff there at USDA that it wouldn't be tolerated during my tenure.</s>HARRIS: So why are you out?</s>SHERROD: I said it over and over again.</s>HARRIS: Why are you out?</s>SHERROD: Pardon?</s>HARRIS: Why are you out?</s>SHERROD: Why am I out? They asked me to resign. And, in fact, they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia, yesterday. I had at least three calls telling me the White House wanted me to resign.</s>HARRIS: So the pressure came from the White House?</s>SHERROD: And the last one asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it.</s>HARRIS: Are you willing to name names?</s>SHERROD: And that's exactly what I did.</s>HARRIS: Are you willing to name names?</s>SHERROD: Pardon?</s>HARRIS: Are you willing to name names?</s>SHERROD: Oh, I can tell you, that was Cheryl Cook, the deputy undersecretary. She called me and said -- because she called me, and I said, "Cheryl, I've got a three and a half hour ride to get into Athens." She called me a second time, "Where are you now?" I said, "I'm just going through Atlanta." She called me again and I said, "I'm at least 45 minutes to an hour from Athens." She said, "Well, Shirley, they want you to pull over to the side of the road and do it because you're going to be on Glenn Beck tonight."</s>HARRIS: Wow. So the administration pressured you out?</s>SHERROD: Yes.</s>HARRIS: How do you feel about that?</s>SHERROD: I don't feel good about it, because I know I didn't do anything wrong. And I know during my time at USDA, I gave it all I had. I worked when I didn't feel like it. I pushed the staff to get out there in places they had not been into before. Like I said, the nine counties I targeted, I asked them shortly after getting there, "Tell me what rural development has been doing in these areas." And when they did that, there were zeroes in a lot of places. And I knew this was an area where we needed to target. We needed to get the programs out into some of these areas that need it, just like some other areas that had gotten the funding over and over again.</s>HARRIS: So I want to be really specific here -- and I apologize. I just have to do it. So, you get, one, two, three calls from Ms. Cook, and at the point that you have the conversation, that it is made clear to you that you need to go, how does that conversation go?</s>SHERROD: Yes.</s>HARRIS: What is said to you?</s>SHERROD: The very first one -- I guess there were like four calls, because the very first one was before I got in my car to go to Athens. She said I was being put on administrative leave. The next call, after I sat waiting and waiting because she told me she would call me right back, the next call said that they're going to have to ask me to resign.</s>HARRIS: Do you feel as though you had an opportunity to state your side of the story?</s>SHERROD: No, I didn't. The administration, they were not interested in hearing the truth. No one wanted to hear the truth.</s>HARRIS: The NAACP released a statement late last night saying in part, "We are appalled by her actions." That is an opportunity to explain what happened 24 years ago. Do you feel as though you got that opportunity, even in a phone call with the NAACP?</s>SHERROD: No, I didn't. The NAACP has not tried to contact me one time, and they are the reason why this happened. They got into a fight with the Tea Party, and all of this came out as a result of that.</s>HARRIS: Your reaction --</s>SHERROD: I would have appreciated -- when you look at my history of civil rights, I would have appreciated having the NAACP at least contact me, and Roland Martin, too, contact me to try to get the truth about what happened.</s>HARRIS: The reaction to your reaction to essentially being condemned by the NAACP?</s>SHERROD: That hurts, because if you look at my history, that's what I'm saying. I've done more to advance the causes of civil rights in this area than some of them who are sitting in those positions now with the NAACP. They need to learn something about me. They need to know about my work. They need to know what I've contributed through the years.</s>HARRIS: What was the point of the story you were telling to the NAACP in March? What was the point?</s>SHERROD: The point was to get them to understand we need to look beyond race, to look at working together. I've said to audiences here, not just that one -- and, in fact, I spoke at a housing conference in a county just south of here, and I said, "Look, we need to get beyond the Civil War." I tell them there are good things about history from the white side, good things about history and culture from the black side. People love to come into this part of the state to see that. I tell them, we need to make the most of it, and if we work together, we can do that.</s>HARRIS: Do you believe as a principle -- do you believe black people in power can make or have the ability -- can make race-based discriminatory decisions?</s>SHERROD: I'm sure that can happen. I can tell you I didn't do it.</s>HARRIS: OK. That was my follow-up.</s>SHERROD: And you could go to any of the communities that I worked with, and if the staff were free to tell you, you could talk to any of the people I've worked with since I've been at USDA, and they can tell you what my record is.</s>HARRIS: Shirley, stay right there. I have someone who wants to speak to this whole controversy. Her name is Eloise Spooner. She is -- wow -- Roger Spooner's wife, widow at this point.</s>SHERROD: Yes.</s>HARRIS: Widow at this point.</s>SHERROD: Yes.</s>HARRIS: Eloise, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.</s>ELOISE SPOONER, ROGER SPOONER'S WIFE: OK.</s>HARRIS: What do you think of this whole controversy? First of all, what do you think of Shirley?</s>SPOONER: She's a good friend.</s>HARRIS: Describe your relationship with her through the years.</s>SPOONER: She helped us save our farm.</s>HARRIS: How did she do that?</s>SPOONER: By getting in there and doing all she could do to help us.</s>HARRIS: What did your husband think -- your late husband, think of Shirley?</s>SPOONER: He's not dead. He's very much alive.</s>HARRIS: Really?</s>SPOONER: Yes, he is. He's 87 and he's on inn his Peterbilt truck this morning.</s>HARRIS: Then I apologize for that. I got incorrect information from one of the newspapers writing on this. I apologize for that.</s>SPOONER: OK. It's all right.</s>HARRIS: Is he aware of the controversy swirling around?</s>SPOONER: Yes, sir. Our son, he came up this morning and says, "Mama, turn on the TV to CNN." And he said, "It's about your friend Shirley Sherrod." And I said, "What?" And we listened and I said, "Great days, that ain't right. They have not treated her right, because she's the one that I give credit to helping us save our farm."</s>HARRIS: Let's see. Some of the story here is that you met in the '80s, it was a bad time. It was a bad time in the family's life at the time. Tell me why you were in trouble with the farm.</s>SPOONER: Well, we had a lot of dry weather, and we had to run the irrigation a lot. And when you make a good crop, you wouldn't get a good price. And just a number of things together caused it.</s>HARRIS: Do you remember your first interaction with Shirley?</s>SPOONER: Yes. At first I looked into -- it was the "Market Bulletin" from Atlanta that we get. We've gotten it for years and years and years. And it said if you were having trouble and you're about to lose your farm, to get with them. And I said, "By George, I'm going to try that." So I did, and he told us to go see a lawyer. And he said, "Well, you all might as well just go ahead and do what Diane (ph) said to do." And I was so mad when we came home. So, anyway, a few weeks later, the guy from Atlanta, the "Market Bulletin," he said, "What happened over in Karo (ph)?" I said, "Exactly nothing. He didn't help us at all." He said, "Well, I'm going to get you with somebody that will help you, I think." And that's when he told us to call Shirley. And we did, and we started right then. She said, "There's two lawyers, there's a black lawyer and there's a white lawyer, and one -- the black lawyer is in Albany and the white lawyer is in</s>HARRIS: Hey, Eloise, a couple of quick questions here about this relationship.</s>SPOONER: OK.</s>HARRIS: I'm just trying to establish this relationship. Explain to me -- I have got a line here that says that you guys picked a bunch of tomatoes?</s>SPOONER: Yes. One year, after things kind of settled down, I had a really pretty garden that year, and we were going up to Albany for some reason. So I told Roger I was going to pick Shirley some tomatoes, and I did, and we carried them by to her and had a good visit.</s>HARRIS: You know, what do you think of the statement that's on the tape? You know, it's undeniable, it is there, where Shirley essentially says, "So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do."</s>SPOONER: Well, she gave enough that it helped us save our farm.</s>HARRIS: CNN is reaching out to the administration for its response, as well as the NAACP. Sherrod's story has a lot of people talking about race, power, politics. I want to hear from you. We always ask for you to participate in the program. Send us your comments to CNN.com/Tony. I'll be reading them a little later this hour.