Shirley Sherrod Update: Has New USDA Job Offer, But Wants to Talk to Obama

(July 22) -- The Obama administration's backtrack on Shirley Sherrod's forced resignation is nearly complete. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Sherrod said, has offered her a position with the Agriculture Department's Office of Civil Rights and Community Outreach -- a fitting position for someone who was wrongly sent packing for being misunderstood in a speech, selectively edited footage of which was posted online by right-wing hit-job artist Andrew Breitbart.

In fact, the full speech revealed just the opposite -- as is now known, she was telling the tale of a black woman who overcame her instincts of race solidarity and reached out to poor white farmers.

Sherrod, who says that the USDA didn't listen to her own entreaties about the full nature of her speech when she was forced to resign Monday night and only reconsidered her situation as public pressure mounted, says she's inclined to turn down Vilsack's job offer. But she told NBC's "Today" show that she'd like to talk to President Barack Obama about the troubles facing the kinds of communities she's worked with.

"I'd like to talk to him about the experiences of people like me, people at the grass-roots level, people who live out here in rural America people, who live in the South," she said. "I know he does not have that kind of experience."

With much of the country -- including many Obama supporters -- on her side, she may yet get her chance.

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Shirley Sherrod's Full, Unedited Speech [VIDEO]