Pearl Sherrod

Pearl T. Sherrod (born Pearl T. Barnett; 1896 – year of death unknown), was an African American activist known for her advocacy for Black and Asian solidarity during the 1930s. Her involvement in Detroit-based organizations such as Nation of Islam (NOI) and The Development of our Own (TDOO) shaped her interest in promoting Black internationalist feminism through social justice work. She served as a leader of TDOO and was a journalist for the Detroit Tribune, advocating for civil rights, challenging racial inequality, and providing a voice for marginalized communities. Sherrod's landmark address at the 1937 Pan-Pacific Women’s Association conference highlighted racial violence in the United States and called for global Afro-Asian alliances against oppression.

Early life Born in 1896 in Alabama, Pearl T. Barnett spent the majority of her adolescence in West Virginia. While records are scarce, it appears Sherrod only attended school through the fourth grade. She married James Sherrod, a man from Georgia, at the age of 15. The couple had three children: Vernell Sarah Sherrod, born in 1910; Emerson Sherrod, born in 1913; and Jimmilee Sherrod, born in 1914. Based on census records, Sherrod worked as a laundress during the 1920s in Clarksburg, Virginia. Sherrod and two of her children moved to Detroit, Michigan, between the years of 1927 and 1929. Their move coincided with the Great Migration, in which Black families moved to the North and Midwest in search of better job opportunities. In Detroit, Sherrod continued her career as a laundress. By the late 1920s, Sherrod and her husband separated, and she became a single parent, taking full custody of her two sons. thumb Clipping of Detroit's Tribune Independent newspaper featuring Pearl T. Sherrod and Satokata Takahashi's marriage.Sherrod’s experiences while living in Detroit played a pivotal role in the formation of her interest in Black internationalist feminism and activism. In the 1930s, she became involved with the Nation of Islam (NOI) when its founder, Wallace D. Fard, began spreading his teachings in the Black community of Detroit. Fard encouraged a unique form of Islam and urged followers to reject the traditional classifications of race, an idea that later influenced Sherrod’s beliefs on the necessity of racial unity in the third world. Sherrod joined the NOI because she believed the organization could improve her and her family’s social conditions. After the NOI was taken over by Elijah Muhammad, who took more patriarchal stances on organizational leadership, Sherrod left the group. Sherrod was not originally scheduled to serve as a public speaker at the conference, but was given the opportunity to deliver an address after her arrival. Her speech denounced the proliferation of global White supremacy and shed light on the challenges faced by individuals of African descent in the United States and across the African diaspora, highlighting their plight and advocating for greater awareness and support. In particular, Sherrod spoke out against the recent lynching of a Black man in the American South. Sherrod urged the global White community to grant constitutional rights to those of darker racial groups, appealing for equitable treatment and recognition of their fundamental rights. Her objective was to build Afro-Asian alliances and work towards dismantling the oppression of people of color, regardless of their ethnic differences.

Nevertheless, prior to her involvement, none of the thirty official U.S. representatives at the 1937 conference were Black, and previous conferences had not addressed African American concerns, so her participation marked a notable change in PPWA’s objectives. She used her presence to raise awareness of the South’s racial violence against Black communities.

Later life Sherrod’s personal life was turbulent in later years, marked by a public argument with her husband concerning organization leadership and her subsequent dismissal from her leadership role in TDOO. Although Sherrod continued to advocate for Japan's military and political triumph, which she viewed as a means of achieving liberty for Black Americans, in 1945 she took a step back from public activism. After severing ties with her husband and TDOO, Sherrod returned to a more private life in Detroit with her youngest son, Emerson Sherrod. In a 1940 census, Pearl Sherrod reported being widowed and unemployed, only receiving financial assistance from her second son, Jimmilee, who was employed as a WPA construction worker. Her last recorded appearance indicated that she spent most of her retirement in Idlewild, Michigan. Her date of death is unknown.