Charles Sherrod

Charles Sherrod (January 2, 1937 – October 11, 2022) was a key member and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement. He became the first SNCC field secretary and SNCC director of southwest Georgia. His leadership there led to the Albany Movement. He also participated in the Selma Voting Rights Movement and in many other arenas of the 1960s movement era.

A supporter of racial integration, he recruited white as well as black members to assist with voter registration efforts. In 1967, he left the SNCC after recently elected chairman Stokely Carmichael expelled white members. He moved north, to New York City, where he received his master's degree in sacred theology from the Union Theological Seminary. He then returned home to direct the Southwest Georgia Project for Community Education. In 1969, Sherrod, his wife Shirley, and some other members of the Albany Movement helped pioneer the land trust movement in the U.S., co-founding New Communities, a collective farm in Southwest Georgia modeled on kibbutzim in Israel. He served as an elected member of the Albany City Council from 1976 to 1990.

A former chaplain at the Georgia State Prison in Homerville, the Rev. Sherrod teaches at Albany State University.[5] He is married to former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod.