The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, Jr.

Isaac Woodard, Jr. (1919-1992) joined the US army in 1942, won promotions, earned the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and a battle star for unloading ships under enemy fire. On 12th of February 1946, at 8:30 pm, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, Jr. was discharged from Camp Gordon in Georgia. Still wearing a uniform, he bought a ticket to South Carolina where his wife was waiting for him. He was 26 years old.

Somewhere between Georgia and South Carolina, he asked the driver of the Greyhound bus, Alton Blackwell...

…I asked him if he had time to wait for me until I could go to the rest room. He cursed me and said ‘No’ and I cursed him back. Then he told me, ‘Go ahead and get off and hurry back.’ And I did. When the bus got to Aiken, S.C, about a half an hour later, he stopped again, and got off an went and got the police. He came back and told me to come outside for a minute and I did. As I walked out, the driver started to tell the police that I was the one who was disturbing the bus. But when I started to explain, they wouldn’t let me.

Blackwell told the two police officers Lynwood L. Shull and Elliot Long that Woodard had been disruptive. So, when Woodard exited the bus, the two started beating him across the head with a blackjack, then arrested him and headed to the town's prison. On their way, Woodard failed to call Shull "sir" which was the reason for the violence escalating. Shull struck him repeatedly with the end of his nightstick - about the head and directly into his eye sockets. Only a few hours after his discharge from the army, he was left in the cell semi-conscious, bleeding, not receiving any medical attention ... blinding.

There were charges of him being drunk and disorderly. The judge and mayor H. E. Quarles could not ignore the injuries, neither could the others attending the court. Nevertheless, the judge told him he would be fined 50 dollars or 30 days in prison. Since he only had 44 dollars on him, he was brought back to prison (his criminal conviction remained on the record until 2018). "Some medicine" was poured into his blinded eyes and a hot towel was placed on his head. Later he was taken to hospital.

Captain Arthur Clancy, the attending physician, confirmed that Woodard's vision was "nil" and that there was no treatment. Since both eyes had been damaged leaving him permanently disabled, it was obvious that Shull's claim that he had struck Woodard only once needed to be reconsidered. Woodard had to remain in hospital for two months. After his release, he lived a life with constant pain and dependence.  

Shull was charged with the violation of Woodard's right to be secure and not to be beaten. It took the all-white jury 28 minutes to acquit Shull, the courtroom erupted in cheers. 

"Nobody in America should have to go through second class citizenship. Me and a whole lot of Black guys went out fighting for the American cause, now we’re gonna have to get America to give us our civil rights too. We earned them." Isaac Woodard, Jr.

When President Harry S. Truman was told about Woodard's blinding, he stood up exclaiming: "My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We've got to do something!" Truman created a presidential commission on civil rights and signed an executive order creating the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services and calling for desegregation of the US military (via and via).

"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." Isaac Woodard, Jr. 

"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." Isaac Woodard Jr.

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photograph via