[2] Sherwood moved to New York City in 1950 and made her first Broadway appearance in Horton Foote's The Chase, replacing Kim Stanley.

Elia Kazan cast her as Mae/Sister Woman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1954) and as Miss Lucy in Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), both by Tennessee Williams.

[2] Sherwood appeared in many soap operas over the years, most notably on Guiding Light as Mrs. Eilers and The Secret Storm as diner owner Carmen.

She had cameos on All My Children as a bag lady and Another World as a befuddled matron, returning to Guiding Light briefly as Roxie Shayne's madame, Diamond Lil.

[4] Active in the civil rights movement, she worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the late 1950s and 1960s and went south to join the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

[6] In the 1970s, she met Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and other activists at the First Women’s Sexual Conference at Barnard College in New York City.