The point of the story is she is mistakenly blaming the wrong people for her woes. From the Republican Party's foundation for freeing slaves, to George Wallace standing in the school house doors while a Democrat, I can't fathom how any blacks can ever vote Democrat. Fulbright was Arkansas Governor when Ike( a Republican ) sent troops to integrate the schools there. Clinton received a Fulbright scholarship and Clinton was proud to accept it. Hugo Black and Senator Byrd are just stories that everyone should know but for some strange reason can't seem to connect the dots to the Democrat party. All this feeds into blacks having more abortions that any other race and Democrats seem to escape the genocide blame. The first gun control laws ( by Americans) were passed to keep blacks from owning guns after the Civil War. It goes on and on example after example that Democrats are racist and always have been. Segregation of the military was invented by Woodrow Wilson as we know now from Glenn Beck. This is real history and yet we focus on Breitbart and not hundreds of years of facts that seem to be swept under the rug.
The Bible talks of people with scales on their eyes and this is but one example. You can read a history book to some of these people and they will swear that Republicans are at the root of these acts. Try telling someone that Hitler was a Socialist and see their reaction. It's the same thing.
Truth matters. The fact that he family member was beaten instead of lynched is not the main aim of the story. It just shows she has been taught a certain way and is too blind to ever accept the truth. My friend's father was beaten to death by the police, but he doesn't say he was drowned or hanged or any other statement that isn't true. People like Ms. Sherrod have been conditioned to ignore the truth and cling to a lie. If she tells a story, you can almost bet that there will be problems to it.
As I understand it, blacks were a solid Republican voting block from the end of the Civil War until FDR, who went after their votes. (There is a scurrious -- and perhaps apocryphal -- quote attributed to FDR speaking to Eleanor about getting black and Jewish votes for Dems!)
I remember the same thing about the South. Every single politician had a (d) behind their name. That changed after LBJ when many started to see how corrupt he was and really changed after jimmah cattah screwed up the country. Only when Ronnie Reagan came into power was the (d) party getting fewer votes here.