Skip to main content

New top story from Time: How a 1946 Case of Police Brutality Against a Black WWII Veteran Shaped the Fight for Civil Rights

https://ift.tt/3ultzij

The murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of killing 46-year-old Black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, began March 29. It comes 10 months after the killing sparked ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and a national reckoning over racial equality and the long history of police brutality, especially against non-white people, in America.

Chauvin’s trial also takes place about 75 years after a similarly extreme case of police brutality that helped shape the modern civil rights movement, when a Black Army veteran was blinded in police custody after being beaten in the eye with a billy club. The incident, which resulted in a trial over whether excessive and unnecessary force was used, is the subject of a new American Experience documentary, The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, premiering Mar. 30 on PBS.

On Feb. 12, 1946, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, 26, had just returned to the U.S. from fighting abroad in World War II and was on a Greyhound bus en route to his home in Winnsboro, S.C., when he asked the bus driver if he could pull into a rest stop for a bathroom break. The driver refused, and the two got into a verbal argument. At the next stop in Batesburg, S.C., the driver ordered Woodard off the bus, and police officers, including Batesburg police chief Lynwood Shull, took Woodard into custody.

The exclusive clip above features a dramatization of Woodard describing how he was blinded in an April 23, 1946, sworn affidavit:

The policeman asked me, ‘was I discharged?’ and when I said, ‘yes,’ that’s when he started beating me with a billy near across the top of my head. After that, I grabbed his billy, wrung it out of his hand. Another policeman came up and threw his gun on me, told me to drop the billy, or he’d drop me, so I dropped the billy. He knocked me unconscious. He hollered, get up. When I started to get up, he started punching me in the eyes with the end of his billy.

Then, as now, police violence against Black Americans was “routine, unaddressed and overlooked,” and Black WWII veterans were often targets, as Kenneth Mack, a professor of law and history at Harvard University who appears in the PBS documentary, tells TIME.

Orson Welles, at the time a prominent radio announcer, publicized the incident, raising awareness among white Americans. The NAACP helped Woodard embark on a speaking tour to help people see realities of police brutality up-close. In August 1946, entertainers Billie Holiday and Woody Guthrie and boxer Joe Louis headlined a benefit concert at Harlem’s now-defunct Lewisohn Stadium to raise money for Woodard and his family. The event drew a crowd of 20,000 and raised $10,000 for Woodard and his family (about $132,835 in Feb. 2021).

“I spent three-and-a-half years in the service of my country and thought that I would be treated like a man when I returned to civilian life, but I was mistaken,” Woodard told the audience. “If the loss of my sight will make people in America get together to prevent what happened to me from ever happening again to any other person, I would be glad.”

In November 1946, in a trial over whether excessive or unnecessary force was used on Woodard, Batesburg police chief Shull claimed he only hit Woodard once. An all-white jury acquitted Shull after deliberating for 30 minutes.

The federal judge who presided over the case, Julius Waties Waring, however, didn’t think the outcome was fair. The case was a political awakening for him, according to Richard Gergel, a South Carolina federal judge who started researching Woodard’s case a decade ago and who brought attention to how it influenced future landmark civil rights cases in his 2019 book Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring. Waring described the case as a “baptism by fire” that led him to issue opinions in favor of civil rights cases for years afterwards.

For example, Waring’s dissenting opinion in Briggs v. Elliott (1952)—in which 20 Black parents in Clarendon County, S.C., sued for equal education for their children—argued school segregation was unconstitutional per the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court came to the same conclusion in Brown v. Board of Education, which cleared up five school segregation cases, including Briggs, after Waring encouraged NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to appeal the decision as a direct attack on segregation.

Woodard’s blinding was also a political awakening for future civil rights leaders. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee co-founder Julian Bond’s earliest memory of racial violence was seeing newspaper photographs of Woodard with bandages over his eyes at the age of six, photographs he would remember for “as long as I live,” per his 2021 posthumously-published collection of lectures, Time to Teach: A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.

Crucially, Woodard’s blinding spurred President Harry S. Truman to take action. NAACP leader Walter White recalled in his memoir that when he told Truman about Woodard’s blinding, Truman stood up and exclaimed, “My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We’ve got to do something!” In Dec. 1946, a month after the acquittal of the Batesburg, S.C., police chief, Truman created a presidential commission on civil rights. In 1948, per its recommendation, he signed an executive order calling for the desegregation of the U.S. military and creating the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services.

“The Department of Justice had been somewhat timid in doing anything about the widespread denial of basic rights to African Americans in the South and across the country, but within two years of Woodard’s blinding, the Department of Justice would begin filing briefs in the United States Supreme Court in segregation cases, arguing that this Court should act against segregation,” says Mack.

As for Woodard, he wouldn’t receive disability benefits from the Army until 1962. To support his family, he bought properties in the Bronx, N.Y., and lived there until his death in 1992 at the age of 73. In 2019, a historic marker about Woodard went up in the city where he was blinded, now called Batesburg-Leesville.

Woodard stayed out of the spotlight, but the trauma of the incident always stayed with him. In a Sep. 16, 1982, interview with the public affairs TV program Like It Is, Woodard said he was frustrated that the police officer who blinded him kept his job. But he didn’t allow it to lose his faith in humanity. “Everybody ain’t bad,” as he put it.

When the host Gil Noble asked him what he wanted future generations to learn about America from what happened to him, Woodard replied, “People should learn how to live with one another and how to treat one another. Because after all, we all are human beings, regardless of color.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FOX NEWS: Americans will suffer 5 sweaty, sleepless nights before turning on the AC for the summer, survey finds Nearly half of Americans wouldn’t date someone who didn’t have the same thermostat etiquette as them, according to new research.

Americans will suffer 5 sweaty, sleepless nights before turning on the AC for the summer, survey finds Nearly half of Americans wouldn’t date someone who didn’t have the same thermostat etiquette as them, according to new research. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2Ay0ABA

New top story from Time: A COVID Outbreak Sparked by Partying Teens Leads to 5,000 Being Quarantined in Spain

https://ift.tt/2UJaeL7 MADRID — Almost 5,000 people are in quarantine after vacationing high school students triggered a major COVID-19 outbreak on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, a senior official said Monday. Authorities have confirmed almost 1,200 positive cases from the outbreak, Spain’s emergency health response coordinator, Fernando Simón said. The partying teens celebrating the end of their university entrance exams last week created a “perfect breeding ground” for the virus as they mixed with others from around Spain and abroad, Simón told a news conference. Mallorca health authorities carried out mass testing on hundreds of students after the outbreak became clear. It is believed to have spread as hundreds of partying students gathered at a concert and street parties. Officials have so far traced 5,126 travelers to Mallorca. More than 900 COVID-19 cases in eight regions across mainland Spain have been traced back to the outbreak. Scores of infected teens are...

PM Modi lauds IFS officers for their work towards serving nation, furthering national interests https://ift.tt/36HoEzw

Greeting Indian Foreign Service officers on IFS day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that their work towards serving the nation and furthering national interests globally are commendable. Their efforts during the Vande Bharat Mission, which was launched to bring Indians home from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic as international travel came to a halt, and other related help to our citizens and other nations is noteworthy, Modi added.

New Sculptures Light up Van Ness Avenue

New Sculptures Light up Van Ness Avenue By Luis “Loui” Apolonio Light sculpture at Van Ness Avenue and O'Farrell Street Spectators gathered both online and in person to watch new lighting sculptures on Van Ness turned on for the first time on March 31, 2022. The whimsical and brightly colored sculptures located on the new Van Ness BRT boarding platform between Geary and O’Farrell are made of steel with LED lights inside on a timer set to illuminate at night.  The lighting event was kicked off with SFMTA Director Jeff Tumlin and MTAB Chair Gwyneth Borden serving as emcees. Mary Chou, Director of Public Arts and Collections at the San Francisco Arts Commission, spoke about the art installation itself, as well as the process for selecting the artist who would be awarded the project. In addition, Maddy Ruvolo, a member of the SFMTA’s Accessible Services team and a recently appointed member of President Biden’s U.S. Access Board, shared the importance of having accessibility as a ...

Happy Lunar New Year 2022: Year of the Tiger 

Happy Lunar New Year 2022: Year of the Tiger  By Pamela Johnson Lunar New Year is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in many Asian communities. Diverse San Franciscan communities including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people have long celebrated this festive occasion.  For many, the Lunar New Year brings a fresh mindset and resolutions for happiness and health. A zodiac animal with specific traits represents each year in the repeating zodiac cycle of 12 years. 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, the third animal in the zodiac. The tiger is considered courageous and adventurous.   The holiday follows the moon's cycles and usually begins in late January or early February. This year Lunar New Year begins February 1.   Fun Fact: In the lunar calendar, the Vietnamese zodiac and the Chinese zodiac are similar, but the Vietnamese zodiac includes a cat while the Chinese ...

New T Third Connecting Chinatown to Sunnydale Starts Saturday

New T Third Connecting Chinatown to Sunnydale Starts Saturday By Christopher Ward New Muni Metro map. This Saturday the T Third starts its long-awaited new route connecting Chinatown-Rose Pak Station from 4th & King in Central Subway, Mondays through Fridays, 6 a.m. to midnight every 10 minutes and Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m. to midnight every 12 minutes.   The K Ingleside will now travel between Balboa Park and Embarcadero Station. Customers using Embarcadero & Folsom, Embarcadero & Brannan and 2nd and King platforms should transfer to the N Judah at Powell Station or 4th & King. Watch the new Muni Metro service  map animations . The following bus service changes also start this Saturday: The T Third Bus will now run along 3rd and 4th Streets in SoMa and on Stockton Street north of Market Street to align with the new T Third rail line and will no longer travel on the Embarcadero and Market Street.   The 6 Haight/Parnassus  will now...

FOX NEWS: Couple gets married at 'most beautiful' Taco Bell: 'It was the best of both worlds' Analicia Garcia, 24, and Kyle Howser, 25, from Sacramento, California, got married on Tuesday, Oct. 26 and had their reception at the famous Pacifica, California, Taco Bell.

Couple gets married at 'most beautiful' Taco Bell: 'It was the best of both worlds' Analicia Garcia, 24, and Kyle Howser, 25, from Sacramento, California, got married on Tuesday, Oct. 26 and had their reception at the famous Pacifica, California, Taco Bell. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/iznRBtFTJ

New top story from Time: ‘It’s a Catastrophe.’ Iranians Turn to Black Market for Vaccines as COVID-19 Deaths Hit New Highs

https://ift.tt/3AODY94 In January, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the sudden announcement that American and British-made COVID-19 vaccines would be “forbidden” as they were “completely untrustworthy.” Almost nine months later, Iran is facing its worst surge in the virus to date — a record number of deaths and infections per day with nearly 4.2 million COVID-19 patients across the country , and a healthcare system near collapse. “It’s a catastrophe; and there is nothing we can do,” said an anesthesiology resident in one of Tehran’s public hospitals who due to the current surge is tasked to oversee the ICU ward for COVID-19 patients. “We can’t treat them nor help them; so all I can ask people to do is to stay home and do whatever it takes to not get exposed.” The doctor requested anonymity in order to speak freely; others interviewed by TIME asked to be identified only by their first name. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The scale of the crisis is such ...

Smarter Traffic Signals Prioritize Transit and People

Smarter Traffic Signals Prioritize Transit and People By Robert Lim Have you ever wondered how traffic signals could better balance the needs of all road users, whether driving, bicycling, walking or taking Muni? The SFMTA is rolling out its Connected Corridor Pilot this month to use transit platform and traffic signal sensor data to inform signal timing adjustments. The pilot also aims to collect information to support transit efficiency and street safety improvements.  Traffic engineers use signal timing adjustments as a tool to prioritize the flow of travel in specific directions or for different travel modes – Muni, people walking or driving – to meet the changing demands of the road network across different timepoints in a day. The Connected Corridors Pilot seeks to push the envelope of innovation by investing in advanced technologies, funded through a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) grant. These tools will better position the city to serve the potential future ne...

Sunday Streets Returns October 17, with Phoenix Day

Sunday Streets Returns October 17, with Phoenix Day By Pamela Johnson For 13 years, the SFMTA and Livable City have brought "Sunday Streets" to San Francisco neighborhoods. Sunday Streets encourages communities to transform miles of car-congested streets into car-free spaces for neighbors to gather, kids to play, and for organizations and businesses to connect. On October 17, 2021, after more than 18 months of Covid-related shutdowns, Sunday Streets Phoenix Day will again bring free recreational activities, resources, and fun to the streets for tens of thousands of San Franciscans to enjoy. While Sunday Streets was celebrated in one neighborhood at a time in the past, this year's Phoenix Day spans various districts in the City for a simultaneous celebration of community, health, and resilience. This year's theme is "One City. One day. Rising together.”  Highlights this year include historic Sunday Streets SF routes, a 20+ mile community bike ride, three neighb...