I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.

You have to approach people with the truth and with love, and with what's right. I was determined to get the truth out because I knew that the truth would set me free.

I want the world to know that Shirley Sherrod is someone who is committed to helping others. I love people, and I love doing things that make a difference.

I grew up on a farm and, prior to my father's murder, I wanted to get away from the farm, and away from South Georgia where the Jim Crow laws absolutely controlled anything and everything we did. So, my goal was to leave once I completed high school. But on the night of my father's murder, I made a commitment that I would not leave the South, that I would stay and devote my life to working for change. So, my father's murder has shaped the course of my life even up to this very day.

When I look in the mirror I see someone who's aging now, and someone who kept a commitment made many, many years ago, and who today is trying to be an example for young women.

We have landowners, small growers. We have people who are holding onto land that was acquired by their families after slavery. They need to produce some of the food we eat, so they can pay the taxes and hold onto the property. Taxes keep going up. We, and by we I mean black people, are rapidly becoming a landless people. Our ancestors, coming out of slavery, acquired more than 15 million acres of land. Today, we're probably down to less than 2 million acres.

You can't give up. Sometimes you get knocked down, but you have to get back up, fighting. You have to think about the others who come behind you as well. And you have to think of the example that you set for others.