Army Sgt. Isaac Woodard served America during World War Two. He enlisted at age twenty-three at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. He served as a longshoreman and was promoted to Sergeant while serving in the Philippines. He earned a battle star for unloading ships while under enemy fire in New Guinea along with the Good Conduct Medal, Service Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. Isaac was proud of his service to his country. He was in a segregated unit as was typical for the time, but war tends to bring people together. On February 12, 1946, after returning to the states and receiving an honorable discharge. Woodard found himself in full uniform on a bus returning home to Winnsboro, South Carolina. The passengers included several discharged soldiers, Black, and white. There was some drinking going on, laughing, and tall tales being told about their shared experiences.
Somewhere along the route, Isaac Woodard became an annoyance to the white bus driver. He reported that Woodard kept asking at stops to get off and use the restroom though no other witnesses confirmed that. The Greyhound bus company’s policy is that the driver complies with bathroom requests while stopped, but something about Woodard irked him. The sight of Black and white soldiers mixing and laughing was likely a factor. That wasn’t done in the South in 1946, at least not in public.
Eventually, Alton Blackwell, the driver, and Isaac Woodard had words after a bathroom request. According to Woodard, Blackwell told him:
“Hell, no. God damn it, go back and sit down. I ain’t got time to wait.”
Woodard said he replied:
“God damn it, talk to me like I am talking to you. I am a man just like you.”
The bus driver, Blackwell, told a different tale. According to him, Woodard (in the back of the bus) became “increasingly profane, intoxicated and disruptive.” A white passenger complained, and Blackwell promised to put Isaac Woodard off at the next stop in Batesburg, South Carolina. When they reached the stop, Blackwell exited the bus to seek out the local sheriff.
Batesburg’s police department consisted of two men, forty-year-old Chief Lynwood Shull and Officer Elliot Long. Both men followed the driver to the bus. At this point, accounts diverge; Chief Shull initially said he led Woodard from the bus walking to the city jail. When Woodard stopped and refused to proceed, he struck him once with a blackjack to get him to comply. White and Black soldiers on the bus testified they saw Chief Shull hit Woodard while still at the bus station, in the midst of Woodard explaining what happened. Chief Shull later admitted:
“I may have struck him at or near the bus stop.”
Ultimately, under cross-examination, Shull acknowledged he may have hit Woodard as many as three times total, not at all what Isaac Woodard described.
In Woodard’s version, the first time he was struck was at the bus station when he tried to explain to Chief Shull that he had not been disorderly. Isaac said that as they walked to the jail, Shull asked him if he’d been discharged, to which he replied, “Yes!” Shull hit him again on the head saying:
The correct answer is, yes, sir!”
Woodard said he grabbed the blackjack and tried to wrestle it away so as not to get hit again. Officer Long had caught up from interviewing people on the bus and pulled his gun on Woodard. He told him:
Drop your weapon, or I will drop you!
Woodard said he dropped the blackjack, Chief Shull retrieved it and began beating Isaac until he lay on the ground unconscious. When he came to and got to his feet. Woodard reported the Chief hit him repeatedly in his eyes with the end of the baton, “driving it into my eyeballs.” Shull hit him so hard he broke the blackjack. They dragged him to the jail and put him into a cell.
When Woodard woke the next morning, he told Shull he was unable to see. Shull helped clean the dried blood off Isaac’s face because Woodard couldn’t see to do it. Shull took him to court where he appeared before Judge H.E. Quarles, who was also the town mayor. When he heard Woodard tried to take the blackjack from Shull, he said, “we don’t have that kind of stuff down here,” and quickly found him guilty. Woodard was sentenced to a fifty dollar fine or thirty days of hard labor on the road. Woodard had his last check from the military for $694.73 but couldn’t endorse it because he had never tried to sign his name before without seeing. He had forty-four dollars in cash, which the judge accepted in lieu of the whole fifty. After court, Isaac was free to go but because he couldn’t see, he was led back to the jail, and the town doctor was sought out, but he was unavailable. A pharmacist suggested applying eyewash and warm towels until Dr. King could arrive. He indicated Woodard had serious damage to both eyes and needed a specialist.
Chief Shull drove Woodard to the nearest VA Hospital, where he was first seen by Major Albert Eaddy, a psychiatrist acting as the admitting officer that day. Eaddy knew Woodard’s condition was beyond his expertise, so he called for a specialist, Captain Arthur Clancy, who found massive hemorrhaging in each eye. Woodard’s vision was non-existent and couldn’t be treated. The next morning, Woodard was seen by another physician, internist Dr. Mortimer Burger. He documented Isaac’s injuries and the lack of a fracture to the bridge of his nose. Burger thought it impossible that a single blow could have caused both eyes’ injuries without damaging the nose area between the eyes.
Woodard stayed at the VA Hospital for two months, where he was treated with antibiotics and other medications for his eyes. The treatments weren’t intended to restore his sight; that ship had sailed. Woodard was diagnosed with bilateral phthisis bulbi “secondary to trauma.” Translated, he had two shrunken nonfunctioning eyes after receiving multiple blows from Chief Shull’s blackjack. Woodard was discharged from the hospital with the recommendation he attends a school for the blind.
You’d think that was the worst of it, but there was more to come. While at the VA Hospital, the staff applied for VA benefits for Woodard because he had been discharged from the army five hours before his altercation in Batesburg. His application was denied. Isaac was only eligible for part-time disability benefits of fifty dollars a month. His wife, Rosa, left him, choosing not to spend the rest of her life taking care of a blind husband. Two of Woodard’s sisters drove down to pick Isaac up and brought him to their home in the Bronx, New York.
Months later, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund got involved and began publicizing the incident. Actor and filmmaker Orson Wells began discussing it on his radio show for four subsequent broadcasts. Musicians wrote songs about the event, including Woody Guthrie’s “The blinding of Isaac Woodard.” NAACP President Walter White met with President Harry Truman about the matter. He reportedly “exploded” when he heard South Carolina officials had done nothing; they hadn’t even investigated the beating. A week later, Truman directed the Justice Department to investigate the matter.
The trial didn’t go well. The local US Attorney didn’t interview anyone except the bus driver. The defense attorney called Woodard racial slurs in open court before stopped by the judge. He told the all-white jury:
“If you rule against Shull, then let this South Carolina secede again.”
Woodard testified first, Shull came later to deny everything Woodard said. He said Woodard had threatened him with a gun, and he hit him with the blackjack in self-defense. Shull was found not guilty, and the audience in the courtroom broke out in applause. Shull never received any punishment and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five in 1997. Woodard died at age seventy-three in 1992 and was buried with military honors.
Something good did come from the Woodard beating. President Truman established the Civil Rights Commission, and the following year, he became the first US President to speak at the NAACP Convention. His speech was broadcast on the radio, and in it, 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.”
In July of 1948, over senior military officers’ objection, Truman signed Executive Order 9981 banning racial discrimination in the US Armed Forces, and Executive Order 9980 that integrated the federal government.
Isaac Woodard’s story hasn’t been completely forgotten. In 2018, Woodard’s drunk and disorderly conviction was vacated. In 2019, a book was published; “Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring.” Federal Judge Richard Gergel wrote it. In 2019, a plaque was unveiled in what is now Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina, memorializing the savage beating and blinding of Isaac Woodard. The funds were raised by the Sgt. Isaac Woodard Historical Marker Association over more than a year. Rep. Joe Wilson said he and Senator Tim Scott would work to honor Woodard with a postal stamp. As of this date, that stamp has not materialized.
Justice was impossible to come by for a Black man beaten and blinded by police in 1946. Some good ultimately came from it, though, as policies changed in the US Army and federal government. After this summer of discontent in 2020 after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others; I’d like to believe the result will be further change, that as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Only time will tell.
“A Riot is the Language of the Unheard!” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s Not Just Driving or Running — Simply Existing While Black Can Kill You
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This post was previously published on Medium.com.
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