Isaac Woodard
Isaac Woodard Jr. | |
---|---|
Birth name | Isaac Woodard Jr. |
Born | Fairfield County, South Carolina, U.S. | March 18, 1919
Died | September 23, 1992 New York City, U.S. | (aged 73)
Buried | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | United States Army |
Years of service | 1942–46 |
Rank | Sergeant |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Awards | Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal World War II Victory Medal |
Isaac Woodard Jr. (March 18, 1919 – September 23, 1992) was an American
The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. Due to South Carolina's reluctance to pursue the case, President
Such miscarriages of justice by state governments influenced a move towards civil rights initiatives at the federal level. Truman subsequently established a national interracial commission, made a historic speech to the NAACP and the nation in June 1947 in which he described civil rights as a moral priority, submitted a civil rights bill to Congress in February 1948, and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 on June 26, 1948, desegregating the armed forces and the federal government.
Early life and military service
Woodard was born in
On October 14, 1942, the 23-year-old Woodard enlisted in the United States Army at
Attack and maiming
On February 12, 1946, Woodard was on a
The bus stopped in Batesburg (now Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina), near Aiken. Though Woodard had caused no disruption (other than the earlier argument), the driver contacted the local police (including Chief Lynwood Shull), who forcibly removed Woodard from the bus. After demanding to see his discharge papers, a number of Batesburg policemen, including Shull, took Woodard to a nearby alleyway, where they beat him repeatedly with nightsticks. They then took Woodard to the town jail and arrested him for disorderly conduct, accusing him of drinking beer in the back of the bus with other soldiers.
Newspaper accounts vary on what happened next (and accounts sometimes spelled his name as "Woodward"), but author and attorney Michael R. Gardner said in 2003:
In none of the papers is there any suggestion there was verbal or physical violence on the part of Sergeant Woodard. It's quite unclear what really happened. What did happen with certainty is the next morning when the sun came up, Sergeant Isaac Woodard was blind for life.[3]
During the course of the night in jail, Shull beat and blinded Woodard, who later stated in court that he was beaten for saying "Yes" instead of "Yes, sir".[4] He also had partial amnesia as a result of his injuries. Woodard further testified that he was punched in the eyes by police several times on the way to the jail, and later repeatedly jabbed in his eyes with a billy club.[5]
Newspaper accounts
The following morning, the Batesburg police sent Woodard before the local judge, who found him guilty and fined him fifty dollars. The soldier requested medical assistance, but it took two more days for a doctor to be sent to him. Not knowing where he was and still experiencing amnesia, Woodard ended up in a hospital in Aiken, receiving substandard medical care. Three weeks after he was reported missing by his relatives, Woodard was discovered in the hospital. He was immediately rushed to an Army hospital in Spartanburg. Though his memory had begun to recover by that time, doctors found both eyes were damaged beyond repair.[citation needed]
National outcry
Although the case was not widely reported at first, it was soon extensively covered in major national newspapers. The
On his
Musicians wrote songs about Woodard and the attack. A month after the beating, the calypso artist Lord Invader recorded an anti-racism song for his album Calypso at Midnight; it was entitled "God Made Us All", with the last line of the song directly referring to the incident. Later that year, folk artist Woody Guthrie recorded "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard," which he wrote for his album The Great Dust Storm. He said that he wrote the song "...so's you wouldn't be forgetting what happened to this famous Negro soldier less than three hours after he got his Honorable Discharge down in Atlanta...."[12]
Federal government's response
On September 19, 1946, seven months after the incident, NAACP Executive Secretary
A short investigation followed, and on October 2, Shull and several of his officers were indicted in
By all accounts, the trial was a travesty. The local U.S. Attorney charged with handling the case failed to interview anyone except the bus driver, a decision that Waring, a civil rights proponent, believed was a gross dereliction of duty. Waring later wrote of being disgusted at the way the case was handled at the local level, commenting, "I was shocked by the hypocrisy of my government ...in submitting that disgraceful case".[13]
The
On November 5, after 30 minutes of deliberation (15, according to at least one news report),
Woodard moved north after the trial during the
Aftermath
Influence on American politics
In December 1946, after meeting with White and other leaders of the NAACP, and a month after the jury acquitted Shull, Truman established the
Truman made a strong speech on civil rights on June 29, 1947, to the NAACP, the first American president to speak to their meeting, which was broadcast by radio from where they met on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The President said that civil rights were a moral priority, and it was his priority for the federal government. He had seen by Woodard's and other cases that the issue could not be left to state and local governments. He said:
It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans—I mean all Americans.[3]
On February 2, 1948, Truman sent the first comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress.
Nevertheless, polls showed opposition to Truman's civil rights efforts. They likely cost him some support in his 1948 reelection bid against
Influence on popular culture
Welles revisited the Woodard case on the May 7, 1955, broadcast of his BBC TV series, Orson Welles' Sketch Book.[16]: 417 Woody Guthrie later recalled: "I sung 'The Blinding of Isaac Woodard' in the Lewisohn Stadium (in New York City) one night for more than 36,000 people, and I got the loudest applause I've ever got in my whole life."[12]
American: An Odyssey to 1947, a documentary by Danny Wu that looks at the Woodard story through the lens of his family members was released in 2023.[17]
Other events
Woodard's "drunk and disorderly" conviction was vacated in 2018.[18]
A group of veterans which was led by Don North, a retired Army major from
See also
- Medgar Evers
- Harry T. Moore
- Murder of Harry and Harriette Moore
- Murder of James Byrd Jr.
- Philleo Nash
- The Scottsboro Boys
- Ossian Sweet
- Emmett Till
- Booker T. Spicely
- George Floyd
- George Stinney
- Rodney King
- Human rights in the United States
- Incarceration in the United States
- Lynching in the United States
- African-American veterans lynched after World War I
- Military history of African Americans
- Murder of Lemuel Penn
- Police brutality in the United States
- Race and crime in the United States
- Race in the United States criminal justice system
- Racial bias in criminal news in the United States
- Racial profiling#United States
- Racism against African Americans
- Racism in the United States
- Use of torture by police in the United States
Notes
- ^ Facilities had been segregated under President Woodrow Wilson.
References
- ^ Andrew Myers, Resonant Ripples in a Global Pond: The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, "Honorable Discharge Paperwork", presented at American Humanities Conference, 2002
- ^ a b Woodard testimony, November 1947 Part 2.
- ^ a b c d e Gardner, Michael R. (September 26, 2003). "Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks". University of Virginia NewsMakers, TV News. University of Virginia. Archived from the original on September 17, 2006.
- ^ a b "U.S. Police Chief Acquitted of Assault on Negro". The Canberra Times. November 7, 1946. p. 1.
- ^ Myers (2002), Blinding Isaac Woodard: Woodard testimony, November 1947 Part 3.
- ^ While newspaper accounts
- ^ Myers (2002), Blinding Isaac Woodard: "Isaac Woodard, Jr.: Medical reports"
- ^ Orson Welles Commentaries — "Affidavit of Isaac Woodward", July 28, 1946.
- ^ "Orson Welles Commentaries". The Paley Center for Media. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
- ISBN 0-670-52895-1
- ^ Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years. New York: The Museum of Broadcasting, catalog for exhibition: October 28 – December 3, 1988, p. 66.
- ^ a b "The Blinding of Isaac Woodward" (Woody Guthrie; 1946) Archived January 14, 2005, at the Wayback Machine, Fortune City
- ^ ISBN 9780375414770.
- ^ The Stan Iverson Memorial Library, Infoshop & Anarchist Archives Archived March 10, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Gardner, Michael. Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Press, 2002.
- ISBN 0-06-016616-9
- ^ Featured, An Odyssey to 1947; says, Reviews Film Threat-Time Warner Entertainment (September 20, 2023). "American: An Odyssey to 1947 Featured, Reviews Film Threat". Retrieved October 16, 2023.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c "Town honors an African-American WWII veteran blinded in a 1946 police beating". CNN. February 11, 2019. Retrieved February 14, 2019.
- ^ Myers, Christina L. (May 28, 2018). "Civil Rights Historians tell little known story of WWII vet". Associated Press.
Further reading
- Egerton, John. Speak Now Against the Day. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
- Gardner, Michael. Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Press, 2002.
- Gergel, Richard. Unexampled Courage: the Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring. FSG, 2019.
- Yarborough, Tinsley. A Passion for Justice: J. Waties Waring and Civil Rights, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
External links
- Picture of Isaac Woodard
- Andrew Myers, Resonant Ripples in a Global Pond: The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, website includes associated primary documents - Isaac Woodard court transcripts, military documentation, et al., paper/website for 2002 American Studies Association conference
- The blinding of Isaac Woodard
- J. Elkins, "Practical Moral Philosophy for Lawyers" - discusses Woodard case in some detail
- Interview with Truman about Philleo Nash History, Oral History, Truman Library website
- "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard" - from the History in Song website
- 1946 "ABC Lear Radio - Orson Welles Commentaries" including 6 episodes devoted or mentioning the case of Isaac Woodard