Isaac Woodard was a decorated African American WWII Veteran from South Carolina. He was honorably discharged on February 12, 1946 and headed home. On a bus ride home through Batesburg, South Carolina, Police Chief Lynwood Shull arrested Woodard, beat him with a blackjack, leaving him permanently blinded. Those that heard of the events were compelled to pursue the destruction of legalized segregation in America. Woodard died in 1992, never knowing the profound impact of his bravery to speak out about the attack.
Learn more about THE BLINDING OF ISAAC WOODARD, including where to watch the documentary: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/blinding-isaac-woodard/
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
