In 1991, she acted as the director and producer of "The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry," made as part of the PBS documentary series American Experience.
[3][4] Her final project "Didn't Take Low," or "Addie and the Pink Carnations," was left unfinished due to a lack of funding and Shearer's health problems.
Shearer was a founding member of the Boston chapter of The Newsreel, a leftist American filmmaking collective that produced and distributed politically radical films.
[3] She worked in an advisory capacity for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Film Fund, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
These projects include "Songs of My People," a documentary about African American music; Sophronia, a love story; an adaptation of Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand; and "The Southern Lady: Image and Reality.