The blinding of Isaac Woodard...

Note for Daily Bleed, February 13, 1946:




Not a correction (except that the last name is spelled differently; don't know which is right):

February 13 [1946].--Isaac Woodward, Jr., discharged from the Army only a few hours, was on hisway home when he had his eyes gouged out in Batesburg, South Carolina, by the town chief ofpolice, Linwood Shull. 

Woodward was travelling on a bus from Atlanta, Ga. to Winnsboro, S.C.About an hour out of Atlanta, Woodward had an altercation with the bus driver. At Batesburg,S.C., the driver called the police and ordered Woodward out. 

Chief of police Linwood Shull struckWoodward across the head with a billy, and in jail gouged out his eyes, blinding him for life. 

OnNovember 5, however, an all-white federal jury acquitted Shull after being out for 15 minutes.Shull's attorney had stated to the jury: 

"If you rule against Shull, then let this South Carolinasecede again."

See We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief Froma Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People. New York: Civil RightsCongress, 1951.



--- Robert Braunwart