The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
Feb 12, 2021
On this Day, February 12, 1946, while traveling home after being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, African-American Isaac Woodard, still in uniform, is attacked and beaten by several South Carolina police officers over a dispute with a bus driver over the use of the restroom. He was then arrested. During the course of the night in jail, the Police Chief beat and blinded Woodard, who later stated in court that he was beaten for saying "Yes" instead of "Yes, sir".
He also suffered partial amnesia as a result of his injuries. Woodard further testified that he was punched in the eyes by police several times on the way to the jail, and later repeatedly jabbed in his eyes with a billy club.
Woodard's eyes had been "gouged out"; historical documents indicate that each globe was ruptured irreparably in the socket.
The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. Suffering from partial amnesia, he was fined $50 and denied medical treatment for two days. When South Carolina wouldn't pursue the case, U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered a federal investigation.
By all accounts, the trial was a travesty.
The sheriff was acquitted by an all-white jury in federal court in South Carolina, despite his admission that he had blinded Woodard.
This incident was the subject of Woody Guthrie's song, The Blinding of Isaac Woodard:
"...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...."
The attack and his injuries sparked national outrage and galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States.
Isaac Woodard was born on March 18, 1919. On October 14, 1942, the 23-year-old Woodard enlisted in the United States Army at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. He served in the Pacific theater in a labor battalion as a longshoreman and was promoted to sergeant.
Woodard moved north after the trial during the Second Great Migration and lived in the New York City area for the rest of his life. He died at age 73 in the Veterans Administration hospital in the Bronx on September 23, 1992. He was buried with military honors at the Calverton National Cemetery (Section 15, Site 2180) in Calverton, New York.
Woodard's "drunk and disorderly" conviction was vacated in 2018.
