Who was Isaac Woodard? Like George Floyd, Black WWII veteran faced police brutality for being 'disorderly'
The tragic killing of George Floyd in May 2020, which was then followed by the conviction of his killer, former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, in April this year, reminded many of the horrifying police assault on Isaac Woodard.
Much like Floyd, Isaac -- a Black World War II veteran -- was also tortured in police custody for a pitiful crime when he was just 27. The brutal incident that happened over seven decades ago and left him blind in both eyes. But his story also became a strong catalyst for the civil rights movement and opened the doors to the discussion in the US about racial segregation and police brutality against Black men.
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Who was Isaac Woodard?
Born in March 1919 to African American parents -- Sarah and Isaac Woodard, Sr -- in South Carolina, Isaac was one among nine siblings. The family used to work as sharecroppers on lands that belonged to Whites. Isaac also spent his early years working in the fields, but he later realized that he needed to find better opportunities and so he left his home at the age of 15. He did several odd jobs, before joining the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939 at the age of 20.
Then in 1942, he was made a part of the US Army for World War II. He was one of the over 675,000 southern Blacks who joined the army in the hope that it would eventually lead them to a better life once they returned to the US once they got the respect they deserved.
During his time in the army, Isaac started off as a longshoreman in the 429th Port Battalion, a segregated combat support unit in the Pacific Theater. Later, he was given a promotion equivalent to corporal rank and was subsequently awarded a sergeant rank for his leadership and capability. He was also honored with a battle star for service in a combat zone, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.
On February 12, 1946, after being discharged from duty, Isaac took a bus from Augusta, Georgia, to his home in South Carolina. At one point in the journey, he asked the driver of the vehicle to stop as he wanted to go to a restroom, but in return, he was cursed. “Talk to me like I am talking to you. I am a man just like you,” Isaac said.
But the driver did not take his words well. At the next stop in the small South Carolina town of Batesburg, they asked the army veteran to deboard the bus as the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, was waiting to arrest him.
Shull took him into custody and reportedly beat him with a billy club. According to Time magazine, Isaac described later how he was robbed of his eyesight. He stated, “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."
He described how his assault continued with other policemen joining in at this point. "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.”
The next morning, he was in a terrible state, while still in his army uniform. Isaac was taken to the city court, where he was fined for drunk and disorderly conduct. Later, he was moved to a VA hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, where he was told he would never be able to see again.
Orson Welles, an American director, actor, screenwriter, and producer, stood up for Isaac. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also came forward and helped him to kick off a speaking tour so that people could engage closely with the harsh truth about police brutality against Black people.
“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. 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,” Isaac once told people.
In July 1946, Welles demanded a trial for the attackers of Isaac. “The blind soldier fought for me in this war, the least I can do is fight for him. I have eyes. He hasn’t. I have a voice on the radio. He hasn’t. I was born a white man, and until a colored man is a full citizen, like me, I haven’t the leisure to enjoy the freedom that a colored man risked his life to maintain for me. Until somebody beats me and blinds me I am in his debt,” he added.
But Shull was not convicted since an all-white jury acquitted him. Then-President Harry S. Truman was affected by this. David McCullough wrote in his biography of the former leader that Isaac “made an everlasting impression on Truman, moving him in a way no statistics ever would have.”
In December 1946, Truman made a presidential commission on civil rights, and two years later, he signed an executive order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.
Kenneth Mack, a professor of law and history at Harvard University, told Time magazine: “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.”
Later in his life, Isaac kept a low profile until his death in 1992. Ten years before his death, he gave an interview with the public affairs TV program ‘Like It Is’, where he expressed his despair over the fact that Shull did not lose his job despite doing his brutality. He also gave a very powerful quote, “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.”