“I am just not sure how I would be treated there,” Shirley Sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he would reconsider the department’s decision to oust Sherrod over her comments that she didn’t give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago.

The White House called the Agriculture Department Tuesday night after more information about Sherrod’s remarks emerged, a White House official said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the call, said the White House and the department agreed that the case should be reviewed based on the new evidence.

A conservative website posted video of Sherrod’s remarks, causing a furor which led to her condemnation by the NAACP and her ouster by Vilsack. Until Tuesday, she was the Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia. Then, she said, she was pressured by superiors to resign.

Sherrod said her remarks, delivered in March at a local NAACP banquet in Georgia, were part of a larger story about learning from her mistakes and racial reconciliation, not racism, and said they were taken out of context by bloggers who posted only part of her speech.

Vilsack’s statement came after the NAACP posted the full video of Sherrod’s comments Tuesday night.

“I am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the American people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner,” Vilsack said.

The Obama administration’s move to reconsider her employment was an absolute reversal from hours earlier, when the White House official said President Barack Obama had been briefed on Sherrod’s resignation after the fact and stood by the Agriculture Department’s handling of it.

But growing calls for the administration to reconsider the decision put pressure on Vilsack, who stressed that the decision to ask for her resignation was his alone. The NAACP, which initially condemned Sherrod’s remarks and supported her ouster, later said she should keep her job. The civil rights group said it and millions of others were duped by the conservative website that posted partial video of her speech on Monday.

Appearing in a nationally broadcast interview Wednesday morning, Sherrod said she “couldn’t get the people I was working with” to listen to her explanation.

She said the tone of her comments posted on the website were misleading because they lacked context. “That’s not me. If you look at my life’s work, you would know that’s not me.”

“… If they would have looked at the entire tape, I don’t see how they could have come away thinking I was a racist,” she said.

Sherrod said she was “particularly hurt” by the NAACP’s condemnation.

“All of my life has been about civil rights work and fairness,” she said. Asked if she would go back to the department if asked, Sherwood said, “That’s one … I just don’t know at this point.”

The white farming family that was the subject of the story stood by Sherrod and said she should stay.

“We probably wouldn’t have (our farm) today if it hadn’t been for her leading us in the right direction,” said Eloise Spooner, the wife of farmer Roger Spooner of Iron City, Ga. “I wish she could get her job back because she was good to us, I tell you.”

As Sherrod reached out to media to plead her case and more people came to her defense, the administration faced criticism that officials nervous about racial perceptions overreacted to her comments and made her a political sacrifice amid dueling allegations of racism between the NAACP and the tea party movement.

In the clip posted on BigGovernment.com, Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help. It was 1986, and she worked for a nonprofit rural farm aid group. She said the farmer came in acting “superior” to her and she debated how much help to give him.

“I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land,” Sherrod said.

Initially, she said, “I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do” and only gave him enough help to keep his case progressing. Eventually, she said, his situation “opened my eyes” that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn’t so much about race but was “about the poor versus those who have.”

The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party movement. The website’s owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase. Biggovernment.com is the same outfit that gained fame last year after airing video of workers at the community group ACORN counseling actors posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

In his original statement on the matter Tuesday morning, Vilsack said he had accepted Sherrod’s resignation and stressed that the department had “zero tolerance for discrimination.” Later in the day, after Sherrod spoke to the media about the intention of her comments, Vilsack sent out a second statement that said the controversy surrounding Sherrod’s comments could, rightly or wrongly, cause people to question her decisions as a federal employee and lead to lingering doubts about civil rights at the agency, which has a troubled history of discrimination.

Sherrod said officials showed no interest in listening to her explanation when she was asked to resign. She said she was on the road Monday when USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her and told her to pull over and submit her resignation on her Blackberry because the White House wanted her out.

“It hurts me that they didn’t even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn’t care,” Sherrod said. “I’m not a racist. … Anyone who knows me knows that I’m for fairness.”

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

A Southeast Washington man was arrested Tuesday and charged in the death of the 18-year-old D.C. Council intern whose body was found in woods Sunday, D.C. police said.

Omare Ishmael Cotton, 28, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Alonte Sutton, police said. Sutton, a Ballou High School senior, was killed Saturday in the 200 block of Newcomb Street SE.

In announcing the arrest, police gave few details. However, D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large), for whom Sutton had worked, said he thinks that police quickly obtained a “pretty good bead” on a suspect.

The shooting occurred “in broad daylight,” Brown said, and there were “several witnesses.”

Sutton had worked last summer in Brown’s office, and Brown has described him as “a super kid.” Brown had recommended him for a one-year internship this year.

Family members have said that Sutton was killed after declining to give a ride to a man’s girlfriend.

The victim’s grandfather, Wayne Sutton, said witnesses told him that Alonte Sutton and the man had exchanged words Friday night.

Tires on Alonte Sutton’s car had been slashed, and he was changing them Saturday afternoon when a gunman encountered him.

The gunman began shooting, pursuing Sutton into a wooded area in the 200 block of Newcomb Street, according to accounts.

The victim’s body was found Sunday in a wooded ravine just east of Interstate 295, and not far from the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus.

Police said Sutton had been shot several times.

D.C. police have opened an internal investigation into their response to the shooting, after witnesses said officers did not thoroughly investigate at the scene. The intern’s body was not found until Sunday.

No street address was given Tuesday for the suspect and no information could be immediately obtained about links between the suspect and the victim.

Brown expressed uncertainty Tuesday about whether all the details of what led to Sutton’s death would come to light.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever know,” Brown said. There are “too many different stories.”

He said he had spoken with Sutton’s relatives and “a lot of people are pleased” that an arrest has been made. But, he said, people “are still going through the grieving process.”

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

D.C. sports fans may have to pay a little more to watch their teams next fiscal year, the D.C. Wire reports.

(Nationals fans, you’re exempt.)

A D.C. Council committee is recommending the adoption of a new tax on sporting events to generate an estimated $3.7 million in revenue to fund city recreation programs for fiscal 2011.

Any admission ticket costing $25.02 or more would tack on an extra $1. Tickets valued at $25.01 or less would cost a fan an additional 50 cents. The tax would not apply to tickets under $10.01, according to a written recommendation of the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

Attorney General Peter Nickles is lashing out at Councilman Marion Barry, accusing D.C.’s ex-mayor of race baiting in comments about city hiring practices.

Barry, D-Ward 8, is raising questions about the city’s health care finance agency, which he says is excluding blacks from top jobs.

At a hearing earlier this week, Barry accused agency director Julie Hudman of running an “all white department,” which the former mayor said smacked of “apartheid.”

Nickles didn’t appreciate the comments.

“You owe Dr. Hudman an apology and you must cease immediately your constant harassment of the director and her staff,” Nickles said in a Wednesday letter to Barry. “I also understand that you intend tomorrow to visit the department … to do your own head count and ’see for yourself’ the racial and ethnic breakdown of the department’s employees and to bring the press with you. This action is completely inappropriate.”

Nickles said Barry was “going to make a fool of himself” if he persisted in his crusade.

“This is over the line,” Nickles told the Washington Examiner. “That’s not the way we do things in the nation’s capital.”

Barry told the Examiner that he stood by his comments and his conduct.

“I’ve been fighting against injustice my whole life,” he said. “When I see it, I’m going to call. I don’t care who gets upset by it.”

Barry has spent much of his career on the fault lines of D.C.’s race relations. A former civil rights activist, he once told white residents who didn’t like him to “get over it.”

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VIA MYFOXDC:

Customers can expect lengthy delays of up to 30 minutes this weekend (May 7-9) as old track components are replaced on the Red and Orange lines, causing inbound and outbound trains to take turns sharing one track on portions of the rail system.

Red Line Track Upgrades

Metrorail customers traveling between the Grosvenor-Strathmore and Medical Center Metrorail stations should expect lengthy delays this weekend and should add at least 20 minutes to their travel time because Metro will replace aging rail fasteners with new ones to stabilize tracks in that area of the Red Line. Trains will share one track between these locations from 10 p.m. Friday, May 7 to closing (midnight) on Sunday, May 9.

Red Line Bridge Repairs

Metrorail customers traveling between the New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U and Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metrorail stations should add at least 20 minutes to their travel time because Metro will be conducting maintenance on a portion of elevated tracks that cross a bridge outside the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metrorail station. Trains will share one track between these locations the entire weekend from 10 p.m. Friday, May 7, to closing (midnight) on Sunday, May 9.

On Saturday, May 8, and Sunday, May 9, all Red Line trains will depart approximately every 30 minutes from the Shady Grove and Glenmont Metrorail stations. Trains departing the Shady Grove Metrorail station will leave approximately at one minute, and 31 minutes past the hour. Trains departing the Glenmont Metrorail station will leave approximately at seven minutes, and 37 minutes past the hour.

Every other train traveling in the direction of the Shady Grove Metrorail station will terminate at the Medical Center Metrorail station. Every other train traveling in the direction of the Glenmont Metrorail station will terminate at the New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U Metrorail station. For people traveling between the Medical Center and New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U Metrorail stations, trains will operate approximately every 15 minutes.

Orange Line Track Upgrades

Metrorail customers traveling between the Stadium-Armory and Cheverly Metrorail stations should add at least 30 minutes to their travel time because Metro will be replacing old cross ties with new ties and welding new rail on the tracks in that area. Trains will share one track between these locations the entire weekend from 10 p.m., Friday, May 7, to closing (midnight) on Sunday, May 9.

Throughout the weekend, every other Orange Line traveling in the direction of the New Carrollton Metrorail station will terminate at the Stadium-Armory Metrorail station and return to the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU Metrorail station. As a result, all Orange Line trains will operate every 12 to 15 minutes between the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU and Stadium-Armory Metrorail stations, and every 24 to 30 minutes between the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU and New Carrollton Metrorail stations.

Be one of the first to find out when Metrorail is experiencing a service disruption by signing up to receive an e-alert. You can personalize Metro e-alerts by signing up to monitor service on specific lines on specific days of the week and on specific times of the day. You can always unsubscribe or change your e-alert preferences. To sign up, visit http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/ealerts/ .

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

D.C. officials showed off the prototype of a streetcar on Wednesday that they hope will run along 37 miles of trolley lines within the next decade.

The public can view the 66-foot-long streetcar, which spent years in storage in the Czech Republic where it was made, through Saturday as the city drums up support for the waylaid $1.5 billion system.

“Hurray for the streetcar in Washington, D.C.,” Mayor Adrian Fenty announced over the streetcar’s address system. He pledged to have the first two lines — H Street/Benning Road in Northeast and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Anacostia — ferrying riders by spring 2012.

The trolley features cloth-covered seats and the same red, gray and gold pattern as the city’s Circulator buses. But one piece still unresolved was also visible: Atop the car were the metal arms that connect the streetcar to the overheard wires that power it. A law dating from the 1890s bans overhead wires in much of the District.

The District Department of Transportation’s Scott Kubly told the Washington Examiner that the city hasn’t given up on changing the law. But it is working on creating the nation’s first hybrid system to use overhead wires in portions of the city, then switch to an alternative power source for areas with views of the Capitol, the Washington Monument or other landmarks.

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