Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- A black former Agriculture Department employee, who resigned after a video clip surfaced of her discussing a white farmer, insisted Tuesday she "went all out" to help the man keep his farm and said she resigned under pressure from the Obama administration.
Shirley Sherrod, who resigned Monday as the department's director of rural development for Georgia, told CNN she had four calls telling her the White House wanted her to resign.
"They asked me to resign, and in fact they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia, yesterday," she said. The last call "asked me to pull to the side of the road and do it [resign]," she said. "I don't feel good about it, because I know I didn't do anything wrong," she said. "... During my time at USDA, I gave it all I had."
Her resignation came after media outlets aired the video, in which Sherrod, speaking to an audience, said she did not give the white farmer "the full force of what I could do" to help him avoid foreclosure.
She said Tuesday that those remarks were taken out of context and that the 1986 incident, which occurred before she started work for the USDA and was working at a nonprofit, helped her learn to move beyond race. She tells the story to audiences to make that point, she said.
Meanwhile, the wife of the white farmer referenced in the clip told CNN she credits Sherrod with helping her family save their farm. Eloise Spooner remembered Sherrod as "getting in there and doing all she could do to help us."
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