Isaac Woodard

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Isaac Woodard, often written Isaac Woodward, was an African American WWII veteran whose maiming hours after being discharged from the U.S. military sparked national outrage and had a profound impact on the growing civil rights movement in the United States.

Woodard, born March 8, 1919, enlisted in 1943 and served in the Pacific Theater as a longshoreman.[1] He earned a battle star, for unloading ships under fire in New Guinea, and a Good Conduct Medal, in addition to the Service medal and World War II Victory Medal awarded to all American participants in the conflict.[2] He received an honorable discharge.

Contents

[edit] Maiming incident

[edit] Background

The actual events of what occurred are unclear even to this day, as reports of the time are conflicting; the information was so vague that newspapers frequently misstated Woodard's surname as "Woodward". However, the bulk of the information that is uniform follows.

On February 13, 1946, U.S. Army sergeant Isaac Woodard Jr. was on a Greyhound Lines bus traveling from Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, headed home to his family in North Carolina. En route to Winnsboro, South Carolina, the bus came to a stop just outside of Augusta, and Woodard asked the bus driver if there was time for him to use a restroom. The driver grudgingly acceded to the request after an argument with Woodard. Once the stop was completed, Woodard returned to his seat without incident, and the bus departed.[3]

[edit] Maiming

The bus then stopped in Batesburg (now Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina). Though Woodard did not protest, the driver contacted the local police (including Chief of Police Linwood Shull), who forcibly removed Woodard from the bus. After demanding to see his discharge papers, a group of officers, including Shull, took him to a nearby alleyway, where they proceeded to beat him repeatedly with nightsticks. Woodard was then taken to the town jail and arrested for disorderly conduct, accused of drinking beer in the back of the bus with other soldiers.

While the newspaper accounts of what transpired next vary, attorney and author Michael R. Gardner wrote, "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." [4] What was revealed is that during the course of the night in jail, Shull blinded Woodard. Woodard also suffered partial amnesia as a result of the injuries.

In Woodard's own court testimony, he indicated that he was punched in the eyes several times on the way to the jail, and later repeatedly jabbed in his eyes with a Billy club.[5] Despite newspaper accounts indicating that Woodard's eyes had been "gouged out", historical documents indicate that each bulb was ruptured irreparably in the socket.[6]

The following morning, the police sent him before the local judge, who promptly found him guilty and fined him fifty dollars. Upon requesting medical assistance, it took two days for a doctor to be sent to him. Not knowing where he was and still suffering from amnesia, Woodard ended up in a hospital in Aiken, South Carolina, receiving substandard medical care.

Three weeks after he was reported missing by his relatives, he was discovered in the hospital. Woodard was immediately rushed to an Army hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Though his memory had begun to recover by that time, doctors found both his corneas damaged beyond repair.

[edit] National outcry

Though the case wasn't reported much in the early days following the attack, it was soon covered in major newspapers around the nation. The NAACP publicized Woodard's plight heavily, campaigning heavily for the state government of South Carolina to address the issue, which it frequently dismissed.

However, the news soon also emerged in popular culture. Via his radio show, broadcaster and movie celebrity Orson Welles soon began to crusade for the punishment of Shull and his accomplices. Welles, a follower of the civil rights movement, found the reaction of the South Carolina government to be intolerable and shameful.

The news would also have an impact on music as well. A month after the beating, calypso artist Lord Invader recorded an anti-racism song for his album Calypso at Midnight entitled "God Made Us All," with the last line in the song directly referencing the incident.

Later that year, folk artist Woody Guthrie would record a song for his album The Great Dust Storm entitled "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard", saying 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...."[7]

[edit] Federal involvement

Finally, on September 19 of that year, NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White, a friend of President Harry S. Truman, met him in the Oval Office to discuss the Woodard case. Gardner writes that when Truman "heard this story in the context of the state authorities of South Carolina doing nothing for seven months, he exploded." [8] The following day, Truman wrote a letter to Attorney General Tom C. Clark demanding that action be taken to resolve this. Six days later, on September 26, Truman directed the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation on the case.

A short investigation ensued, and on October 2, Shull and several of his officers were indicted in the U.S. District Court in Columbia, South Carolina. The case was brought to the federal level on the grounds that the beating had occurred at a bus stop on federal property, and that at the time of the assault, Woodard was in uniform. The case was presided over by Judge Julius Waties Waring.

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 would later write of his disgust of 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...." [9]

On the Defense side, the behavior was no better. When the defense attorney began to shout racial epithets at Woodard, Waring had it stopped immediately. During the trial, the defense attorney also stated to the jury that "if you rule against Shull, then let this South Carolina secede again." [10] Furthermore, after Woodard had given his account of what happened, Shull firmly denied this, claiming that Woodard had threatened him with a gun, and that Shull had used his nightclub to defend himself. During this testimony, Shull admitted that he repeatedly struck Woodard in the eyes.

On November 5, after thirty minutes of deliberation, Shull was found innocent on all charges despite his admission that he had blinded Woodard. The courtroom broke into applause immediately thereafter. [11]

The failure to convict Shull was seen as a failure on the part of the Truman administration.

[edit] Aftermath

The aftermath of the Woodard case brought about a number of changes, both in American politics and pop culture.

[edit] Impact on American politics

In July of 1948, over the objection of senior military officers, Truman promulgated Executive Order 9981, banning racial discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces. This was done as a response to a number of incidents against black veterans, most notably the Woodard case.

Perhaps owing to his involvement in the Woodard case and his civil rights activism, Truman was behind in his 1948 reelection bid against Thomas Dewey. Though he narrowly won, his continued championing of civil rights, a cause contrary to public opinion of the time, cost him greatly. By the time he left office in 1953, he chose not to run for a third time due to a 31% public approval rating, though he was eligible.

[edit] Impact on pop culture

On the May 7, 1955 broadcast of the BBC television series The Orson Welles Sketchbook, Welles gave an account of the Woodard case and commented, "I am willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job. But it's the essence of our society that a policeman's job should be hard. He's there to protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals — that's an incidental part of his job."

The events and outcome of the case also partially inspired Welles' 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Woody Guthrie later recalled, "I sung 'The Blinding of Isaac Woodard' in the Lewisohn Stadium one night for more than 36,000 people, and I got the loudest applause I've ever got in my whole life."[12]

[edit] See also

[edit] External references

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