The Blinding of Isaac Woodard | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS

[Music] good morning this is oron well speaking I'd like to read to you an affidavit I Isaac Woodard Jr being duly sworn to depose and state as follows I'm 27 years old and a veteran of the United States Army having served for 15 months in the South Pacific and earned one battle star while I was in uniform I purchased a ticket to windsboro South Carolina and took the bus headed there to pick up my wife to come to New York to see my father and mother about one hour out of Atlanta the bus drivers got off and went and got the police the policeman grabbed me by my left arm and twisted it behind my back I figed he was trying to make me resist I did not resist against him another policeman held his gun on me while the other one was beating me I started to get up he started punching me in my eyes he knocked me unconscious I woke up next morning and could not see they took me to the veterans hospital in Columbia South Carolina they told me I should join a blind school you have a man wearing a dress uniform he has medals on his chest all the symbols of sacrifice and service are there and it doesn't matter it just doesn't matter to a white Southerner in 1946 nothing is more provocative than a black man in uniform you have law enforcement coming with the full savagery of Southern racism no one can say that what happened to Isaac Woodard was justified it just seemed to be something that shouldn't happen in America now seems the officer of the law just another white man of the stick who wanted to teach a negro boy a lesson to show a negro boy where he belong wronged in the darkness are we going to have people who live in the United States and are less equal than others what are we going to do about this you say the north is bullying the South I'm afraid you're missing the point this isn't another Battlefield of the Civil War the sides aren't the blue and the gray they are the right and the wrong who would have guessed that the blinding of a heroic veteran would be the beginning of the end of Jim Crow in America major funding for American Experience is provided by at Liberty Mutual We Believe progress happens when people feel secure that's why we exist to help people Embrace today and pursue tomorrow liy liyy Liberty Liberty Mutual Insurance is a proud sponsor of American experience as an american-based supplier to the construction industry carile is committed to developing a diverse workplace that supports our employees advancement into the next generation of leaders from the manufacturing floor to the front office learn more at car.com going home [Applause] that's the sweetest word the GI ever heard back to the good old USA where just the formality of mustering out and then home sweet [Music] [Music] for the G's discharged just hours earlier the weight inside the Greyhound bus terminal was excruciating they were on the final leg of a journey that had taken them halfway around the world and back Freedom was so close they could nearly taste it the soldiers that were were there they had to been jubilant and proud happy to return home on your soil so it had to have been just an exciting time for all of them to go home and see their families [Music] finally on the 8:00 Augusta to Columbia coach that night was Sergeant Isaac Woodard headed home to windsboro South Carolina to see his wife for the first time in several years wood it was still in uniform carrying a battle star for bravery Under Fire and a final paycheck from the US Army and the extraordinary sum of $695 enough to start the kind of life he hadn't dared dream of before the [Music] war like the other 900,000 African-American soldiers returning home from Duty Isaac Woodard had come to see this bright new future as his due African-Americans had fought in all of the major Wars American history and there's always been this theme of if we fight and we show our loyalty then we are going to advance and be recognized as more equal citizens and that dream had always been frustrated but World War II was actually quite different from past Wars for African Americans because it was a special kind of War this war this particular War crystallizes around the idea of this fight against Fascism and that means that it is a fight against inequality of suppressing groups of people because of their race so you have black soldiers coming home having been inculcated with the idea that America stands for something different than fascism something different than racial and ethnic discrimination something [Music] better by 10:00 on that February evening Isaac Woodard was little more than an hour away from his Homecoming in windsboro the atmosphere on the bus is jovial filled with the relief that soldiers feel after surviving 15 months at War black soldiers and white soldiers are talking together joking together eventually a bottle of whiskey gets opened and passed around there were a few nons soldiers on the bus and they were very uncomfortable with the interaction between the white and black soldiers there were complaints to the bus driver and the bus driver didn't like it there are of course in 1946 no bathroom facilities on public buses Isaac Woodard asked the bus driver um if at the next stop he could be allowed to disembark and to go to the bathroom and the bus driver tells him boy go sit back down the bus driver cursed him Isaac Woodard cursed him back and proclaimed his manhood he just said to the gentleman you know you don't have to speak to me in that manner I'm a man just like you in other words give me respect military training and service turned a black man from the rural Deep South with a fifth grade education into a man willing to say words that he knew could put his life at risk there is no doubt when he said that that he was under any Illusions about what he was saying where he was saying it on a bus at night in the Deep South but he was a veteran he was wearing the uniform he was surrounded by veterans were wearing the uniforms they were returning from a war that they had won and he was a stronger man because of it the bus driver is furious at the next town he goes looking for a police officer to have Woodard removed from his bus W's kind of perplexed he steps off the bus and as he's trying to explain himself the police chief brings out his Blackjack which is like a baton but it's springloaded and it has tremendous force and hits Woodard over the head with a soldier aboard the bus watched as the officer took wooded by the arm and forced him around the corner and out of sight that is the last I saw of him he would tell investigators a few months [Music] later they start beating him all across the head and they gou his eyes out they didn't beat him out they put the stick in there and twisted it they threw him in jail and he told me they P whiskey over him to say he was drunk he was arrested for supposedly disorderly conduct disturbing the peace and being drunk drunk he was not drunk he was not being disorderly and he did not Disturbed the peace he spends the night in jail unable to see an excruciating pain the next morning he is taken to the judge he is levied a fine but he can't see to sign the paperwork that is put before him ultimately when Woodard is examined by Specialists they determine that he will never see again the injuries are severe and they are irreversible he will be blind for life and you spend 42 months in the military overseas in the Philippines and you come home to this how can you just Gall someone's eyes out anybody how you can't do that and it hurts me to even think about it but it happened it's said well that was I say part of ignorance you know that's the bottom line plain ignorance as World War II ended 900,000 African-American veterans returned to America 75% of them to the South most of them to the rural South the war took black soldiers out of communities where they had to adhere to a certain set of social norms in which they were subservient and open up Poss abilities even a segregated Army gave chances for training and leadership in advancement and recognition those in Europe had been treated very respectfully and for the first time in their lives the color of their skin was not the predominant characteristic to which they were identified they came home feeling like they had done their Duty in defense of American democracy and Liberty but when they returned home they largely saw nothing had [Music] changed white Southerners of that era considered the returning soldiers to be potential trouble not great American citizens as some would say they no longer knew their place black soldiers were especially threatening to the racial mores that undermine [Music] segregation black soldiers were in uniform they wore emblems of authority they often carryed themselves with a sense of authority that the enforcers of white supremacy found particularly threatening wearing the uniform of the US military grants won the prerogatives of citizenship and black men make no bones about the fact that they feel completely deserving of those prerogatives and they become the target so in 1946 what you is one incident of racial violence after another there was little recourse and little protection for the African-American veterans victimized in the South investigating these hate crimes often fell to a small team of lawyers at the National Association for the advancement of colored people headed by th Good Marshall the NAACP is just inundated with cases of violence against black soldiers uh wrongful Court Marshals massive riots Slaughter and th good Marshal office had files from floor to ceiling of these cases a harrowing new report landed in the NAACP Legal Office almost every week in 1946 one black Army veteran was murdered on his front porch in Taylor County Georgia his offense had been casting a vote in the Democratic primary a week later 120 Mi away a black veteran was kidnapped by a Lynch Mob along with a friend and their two wives one of them reportedly 7 months pregnant the four were shot roughly 60 times at close range eyewitness accounts reported that the lynching party included local police officers in the middle of what thir Good Marshall called that terrible season of 1946 Isaac Woodard walked into the New York City offices of NAACP head Walter White the 27-year-old South Carolina native struck white as polite and handsome with the ramrod straight bearing of a soldier I saw you Mr White when you visited my outfit in the Pacific he said I could see then would have then sat down and told the story of his blind finding in a sworn affidavit the policeman asked me was I discharged and when I said yes that's when he started beating me with a billy hitting me across the top of my head after that I grabbed his Billy rung it out his hands another policeman came up and threw his gun on me told me to drop the Billy or he dropped me so I dropped the billy he knocked me unconscious he haul it get up when I started to get up he started punching me in the eyes with the end of his Billy nwcp officials they were moved by this like everyone was moved by just the tragedy of it in addition the nacp leadership was always on the lookout for cases of Injustice that they could use to really dramatize the nature of the Southern racial system for African-Americans around the country to get them to support the end naacp's work and for white people um to make them understand what's really going on once Walter White gets a hold of Isaac woodard's story he is on fire he is looking for ways to publicize this story and he's looking for the biggest platform out there how do you do ladies and gentlemen this is Austin Wells white and his new press agent reached out to one of the nation's great dramatists the Boy Wonder of stage and Cinema 31-year-old Orson wells in the summer of 1946 Wells was hosting a radio show that broadcast nationally every Sunday nacp goes to him and says we need your help to share this story the story fascinated him particularly the who done it quality no one knew who this police officer was not seems the officer of the law Who blinded the young negro boy of the affidavit has not been named till we know more about him for just now we'll call the policeman officer X officer X I'm talking to you we invite you to luxuriate in secrecy it will be brief you're going to be uncovered Wells came back to the wooders story the next week and the week after drawing more listeners each episode but there were holes in the story 3 weeks into the radio broadcasts there were still no real leads about woodard's as salent or even about the town where Woodard had been pulled from the bus the NAACP legal team was getting nervous Marshall says we got to get this right we've got our friends out on a limb on this thing morson Wells hires private investigators to go throughout out the bus route to figure out where this happened and the naacp's national office has its lawyers searching these communities asking does anyone know the story arriving in unsolicited in the national office is a letter from a black soldier who says I heard on the radio about the blinding of Sergeant Woodard I was on the bus it was Batesburg I have before me wires and press releases to the effect that a policeman of Batesburg a man by the name of sha has admitted that he was the police officer Who blinded Isaac wood officer X we know your name now now that we found you out we'll never lose you you can can't get rid of me we have an [Music] appointment the wells broadcast had put the story in the headlines and a whirlwind began to swirl around Isaac Woodard when word got out that the Army had denied the young Sergeant full disability benefits on the grounds that he was blinded a few hours after his discharge luminaries from New York's black community organized the benefit concert on his behalf headlined by some of the biggest names in music stars from Billy Holiday to Woody Guthrie turned up at lewison stadium in Harlem to raise money for the blind GI [Music] heavyweight champion Joe Lewis hero of Black America stepped forward to co-chair the event Joe Lewis sent a limousine to our house in the Bronx I was 11 years old that excited me seated beside his mother Isaac Woodard a young man from Tiny windsboro South Carolina was all struck to learn that nearly 20,000 people had gathered in his honor 10,000 more were turned [Applause] away the crowd had been drawn by the allar performances but it was wooded himself who turned out to be the headliner one reporter noted that Applause lasted for 5 minutes after he took the stage he spoke in a very low voice and people had to go be completely silent to hear him but it was a powerful account of what happened I spent three and a half years in the service of my country and thought that I would be treated as 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 [Music] [Applause] glad the benefit concert netted more than $110,000 for Isaac Woodard enough to buy a house but little else one NAACP staffer noted though wooded was riding high now in 10 years no one will remember his name the nwcp basically adopts a plan to make Isaac Woodard the centerpiece of a campaign for the promotion of the civil rights of all returning veterans he goes on a multi- City Nationwide speaking tour that gathers huge crowds all across the country it's hard to imagine how many other black men would have been as well known in America in 1946 and 1947 than AAC Woodard so many victims of Southern violence are not AE their bullet ridden corpses are in a grave somewhere but he's alive to talk about his story my dad told me he remembers when the mailman would arrive daily he would have a huge duffel bag that he would carry and the letters would just pour out onto the floor how does Isaac Woodard negotiate this new world that he's in he's blinded he's got to figure out how to support himself and also being called upon to be a symbol where he didn't want to be a symbol he just was expecting to be discharged from the Army and go back to his family the blind Soldier fought for me in this war the least I can do now is fight for him I have eyes 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 colored man risked his life to maintain for me I don't own what I have until he owns an equal share of [Music] it until somebody beats me and blinds me I am in his death the wells broadcast generated huge attention NAACP built on that and civil rights groups around the country were writing letters demanding for the prosecution of this police officer for the beating and Blanding of Sergeant Woodard in terms of getting Justice for Isaac Woodard it's going to be extremely difficult if not impossible there are no prosecutions of white police officers by the federal government for excessive force they're getting a th to 2,000 complaints a year and they're essentially not doing much everybody understood that southern state governments did not protect against violence in fact local officials were often the purveyors of violence so there had been calls and calls and calls on the federal government to take some kind of an action but the Department of Justice had largely been unwilling to step up to that task the justice department had endless explanations about why it simply wasn't possible to do this you had all white juries all white grand juries why are they all white because African-Americans are disenfranchised and getting a conviction against a white police officer is not realistic it's not going to happen in the South there's this part of it that is about treating the South as though it is some peculiar unique Hot House flower that has to be handled carefully and that um that that you kind of didn't try to interfere with something that was regarded as kind of cultural and this really comes out of the idea that southern mores were sufficiently different that it would do you no good to try to interfere with them what the NAACP can do is try to channel righteous outrage try to shine a light on this incredibly heinous incident and perhaps go above the head of local law enforcement to Washington to prick the conscience of the president and that perhaps through the powers of the presidency some change can come to the South there had been a long tradition of black leaders meeting with presidents of the United States but there's a lot of Suspicion of Truman you know how Li Ro is he how sympathetic to the nwcp is he going to be nothing in Truman's background would lead one to believe that he would act differently than the presidents before [Music] him civil rights leaders had good reason to regard Harry Truman as an unlikely champion of black Americans he had grown up in Independence Missouri a town that still celebr C at its Confederate Heritage Truman's grandparents on both sides were Rebel partisans and slave owners Harry Truman's mother thought John WIS Booth was an American hero she refused to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom in the white house he grew up in a household where belief on white supremacy was simply in the air people use racial epithets very very casually and he continued to use them well into his adult life despite his background President Truman was willing to listen to the concerns of civil rights Advocates on September 19th 1946 Truman invited Walter White and a delegation of religious and labor leaders for a meeting in the Oval Office the meeting begins and the civil rights leaders are asking the president to pass legislation prohibiting lynching in America Harry Truman says to the leaders I understand your concerns but there's not in the will in this country for new legislation Walter White is listening to this discussion and he realizes that Harry Truman doesn't get it he stops the discussion and says Mr President I need to tell you the story of the blinding of AAC [Music] Woodard people like Harry Truman need to be woken up that was part of the ncp's job was to wake people up to injustices they tolerated that they ignored that they were complicit in and to make them see it Harry Truman decades earlier after World War I had been a returning veteran a white returning veteran to be sure but the idea that a war veteran wearing his uniform could be pulled off a bus and attacked and beaten by law enforcement officers surprised Truman and enraged him Truman became red-faced extremely agitated jaw clenched and then turns to his staff and says says my God I didn't know it was as terrible as this we have got to do something the next day the president fired off a letter to his attorney general referencing Isaac Woodard and insisting it would require the inauguration of some sort of policy to prevent such happenings 5 days later at Truman's insistence the Attorney General ordered Federal prosecutors in South Carolina to initiate criminal proceedings against police chief ly goodshaw this is unprecedented for the president of the United States to involve himself in what white Southerners see as a local matter this was a way of life for them they thought it was perfectly normal for a southern Sheriff to get away with blinding a black man and so the mere fact of the federal government's attention and engagement demonstrated that someone was watching it demonstrated that perhaps the South would not be treated as this peculiar region that we won't touch it was very very powerful President Truman's resolve to hold Chief shell accountable was met with predictable resistance even by the US Attorney in charge of the case it is greeted in South Carolina with shock anger revulsion in the white political leadership the US attorney for South Carolina wanted no part of this case the justice department makes it very clear this is not a matter of debate this is an order you are to bring this case Cas when Isaac Woodard returned to South Carolina for the trial the NAACP dispatched Franklin Williams one of their finest attorneys to accompany him the nwcp sends Franklin Williams to travel with Isaac Woodard for several reasons he's blind and needs some of the navig around and also they fundamentally don't trust the Department of Justice Franklin Williams recognizes that the object of this entire thing was to make it almost like a culture War it was going to be out a southern way of life versus these Northern activists and Intruders trying to dictate their way of life on the south Williams offered plenty of assistance to the prosecution at their first and only meeting less than 24 hours before the start of the trial he had a list of possible Witnesses including bus passengers who had seen Lynwood Shell's first unprovoked blows to woodard's head he also had at the ready a report by NAACP investigators detailing Shell's History of Violence Against the black citizens in Batesburg but the prosecution waved him off on the morning of November 5th 1946 the courtroom in Colombia was tense and segregated SCH supporters occupied one section of the gallery determined to witness the repudiation of a federal government gone too far a delegation of anxious black college students took up the other half hoping to catch the first glim of a sea change in Southern Justice a hush fell over the room as judge Jay W's wearing called the trial to order Jay W's wearing was an eighth generation charian his father was a confederate veteran multiple generations of his family were slaveholders he was no advocate for civil rights and he frankly early on when he got ass signed this case he had a lot of doubts about the appropriateness of the federal government to prosecute a police officer judge wearing like most in South Carolina's political class harbored plenty of suspicions about Federal intervention in this case chiefly that President Truman was motivated more by the coming midterms than a concern for justice but wearing's skepticism began unraveling as soon as Isaac wooded Rose to testify he's wearing a brown suit he has sunglasses he has to be guided to the witness Chair by Court personnel and he then begins on the direct examination to describe what happened and the story is just completely in credible wearing knows it's true wearing is face to face with this man who Bears on his body the scars of Southern racism he cannot look away from this walking talking tragedy of Injustice the Crux of the case is whether excessive and unnecessary force was used in regard to AAC Woodard the police chief claimed I only hit him once I don't know how he got blinded but how do you crush the Globes of both eyes with one [Music] strike the government finished presenting its case against sha after just an hour and 25 minutes the prosecutors had not called Witnesses who had seen the attack unfold or presented any evidence about Chief Shell's pattern of of violence against the black citizens of Batesburg as the prosecution rested Franklin Williams sat in the courtroom furiously scrawling notes it was going to be a difficult case to win but even given that the Department of Justice acted with incompetence they failed to call Key Witnesses they let the defense lawyers examine the jury pool and ask them whether they'd been members all these white people asked them whether they've been been members of the nwcp I mean they never asked them whether they've been members of the klex clan they were just sort of incompetent from top to bottom there's a reason for that this is not a case that justice department wanted to bring and at trial they showed that their heart was not in it judge wearing was horrified that he was made part of this travesty he sends the jury out to deliberate and he tells his assistant United States Marshall I'll be back in a few minutes and the bewildered Marshall says your honor um you can't leave this jury's going to be back in five minutes he says they not coming back in five minutes because I won't be here he was not going to allow a jury to do a a 5minute verdict which he thought would just be the Capstone of a great Injustice that part he controlled and he made them sit in that room and stew in their juices until he got back judge wearing walks down Main Street to the state capital and when he comes back 25 minutes later they're banging on that door they've been banging on it for 20 minutes and they come out and they announce the aquid of Lyn [Music] wshell an exhausted Isaac Woodard had already retreated back to his hotel when he received the news he wept then collected himself and stepped outside to face reporters I'm not mad at anybody he told them I just feel bad that's all I just feel bad inside the courthouse judge wearing hastily packed up his briefcase and then hurried to meet his wife Elizabeth whom he found badly shaken she had attended the trial and she found the facts of the case astonishing cruel vicious when the jury came back and acquitted Shaw no one noticed that she slipped out of the back of the courtroom in [Music] tears she was profoundly moved by the testimony of Isaac Woodard about what had happened to him at the hands of Chief Shaw she said she had never seen never appreciated never understood that these sorts of things could happen Elizabeth Avery wearing was from a well-to-do family in Michigan and had only come South late in [Music] life like Wades she had never paid much attention to the racial cast system in and around Charleston [Music] charlon a gracious old city where memories and traditions live and thrive in a congenial air everywhere is an old time almost an old world charm and [Music] cainers and everywhere of course the Negro the real Negro quarters in Charleston may not boast classic Colonial architecture in all its flower but it has a quaintness all its own the southern system of segregation wasn't just some benign system that whites and blacks acceded to and everybody was happy it was a violent system was based on violence if you got out alarm there was violent repression and Woodard exemplified that you know for somebody like wearing he'd spent his whole life ignoring that I couldn't take it at first wearing would later admit I used to say it couldn't be true you grow up in it and the Moss Gets In Your Eyes you learn to rationalize away the evil and filth and you see Magnolia instead there is a willful blindness frankly among most white people about the truth of racism and white supremacy in this country there is some ignorance because of course we live very segregated lives but it's right to say how could he possibly not have known he could not have known because to be a comfortable middle class white person in this country generally involves refusing to see what is hiding in plain [Music] sight the trial shattered their illusion about the benign nature of Southern life and once shattered where do they go there was just no tolerance in southern Society of that day to any honest discussion about race any questioning of Jim Crow was viewed by the segregation as an existential threat there's no course on this they certainly didn't know of anyone in Charleston that could help them better understand so the two of them began a series of study on race relations in the South they take in books every night they read them and then they have sessions after dinner where they ask each other questions and they basically create their own personal seminar to try to understand racism in America the wearings started with two groundbreaking new works that examine the origins and the impact of white supremacy in the South WJ Cash's book the mind of the South and gunar mural's an American dilemma both books destroyed the comforting story white Southerners like to tell themselves that slavery in Jim Crow had always been paternal institutions and that the Negro had long lived under the protections of a benevolent Master [Music] race both made plain that white moderates like wearing himself were complicit in This Racist violent system these are important books are complicated books are challenging books judge weing described them as tough medicine for him they rode through different neighborhoods and began to see the different ways that white chians and black charlestonians experienced life in the [Applause] city as they began to read and understand and question question all that they've thought about race in the past it becomes clear to both of them that uh the road ahead is going to be a rocky road but that this just may be the road that they are uniquely prepared to follow looking a scance at Charleston Society wasn't such a great leap for either of the wearings who had been increasingly feeling like Outsiders in their own Hometown just the previous year judge wearing had scandalized his friends and neighbors by abruptly announcing to his first wife Annie that he'd fallen in love with their Bridge partner Elizabeth divorce was not only frowned upon in South Carolina it was illegal but wearing devised a plan to send Annie to Florida where she could legally petition for divorce a week after the dissolution of his marriage to Annie Wades and Elizabeth were went they friends in Charleston we're talking about a couple hundred people with it sort of social set in Charleston they blame Elizabeth for the breakup of the marriage Elizabeth a northerner now on her third marriage was an easy target for Charleston's Society Dames who branded her of Floy and told their children you may be polite if the new Mrs wearing speaks to you but never address her the judge noted that even his oldest friends crossed the street to avoid him they clearly were surprised by their treatment because they both had been very engaged in the social life of Charon and having been read out of Charleston's High Society he was prepared to look more critically at the world in which he had previously lived and accept it unquestionably by the end of 1946 a racial Reckoning in the United States seemed inevitable like the wearings president Harry Truman felt called to respond to the blinding of Isaac wooded and the mockery it made of the principles America had just defended in a long and brutal War but political forces had left Truman with limited power to take action against white supremacy on the same day woodard's as salent walked free November 5th 1946 the president absorbed a stunning repudiation at the polls Democrats lost both the house and the senate for the first time in a generation forcing the question of civil rights Truman understood was likely to weaken the party further Harry Truman has to deal with political realities and the realities are that the Democratic party is an unwieldy Coalition including white Southerners who are staunchly segregationist and supporters of white supremacist and this new and growing group of African-American voters Truman knows that any move that he makes on civil rights he risks alienating southern white Democrats but at this moment when he sees a representative of the United States a soldier in uniform Isaac Woodard who is named it sounds simplistic but I think something just kind of Clicks in him that this simply cannot stand we hold ourselves up as the beacon of democracy we hold ourselves up as moral leaders moral leaders do not blind their own servicemen on December 5th 1946 1 month after the acquittal of Isaac woodard's attacker Harry Truman signed an executive order establishing the president's committee on civil rights the president charged his new committee with laying bare hard truths about the intimidation and violence used to enforce racial segregation and with recommending concrete measures to safeguard the rights of every American regardless of race Creed or religion here Truman is a politician and political considerations are never far from the Ambit of a politician's decisions but there were certain actions he took which could not be explained on the basis of political Advantage he appointed the president's committee on civil rights I think probably more for moral reasons than anything else he saw Injustice he was outraged by it he thought that he should do something and given Truman's background it undoubtedly was a surprise to civil rights Advocates Truman said many things that were absolutely racist and indefensible they were what we would consider of the time for a white man from Missouri but Truman saw no contradiction between these personal views and what he saw as America's legal obligations to its citizens that it does not matter what you personally feel whom you would have to your home for dinner or whom you would have a glass of bourbon with at the end of the day what matters is that these people have rights under the Constitution because this is the United States of America [Music] every on a brutally hot humid day at the end of June 1947 an audience of 10,000 many of them African-American gathered on the Capital Mall in a state of high anticipation Harry Truman was about to do what no United States president had ever done he had accepted an invitation from Walter White to address the annual Convention of the NAACP at the base of the Lincoln Memorial the NAACP was considered a radical organization some Southern politicians considered a Communist front organization I mean if you were a member of the NAACP in the south and you were a school teacher you were probably going to get fired and to have Harry Truman go in front and speak to the end up ACP was a remarkable moment he had multiple drafts of the speech done he was editing it himself and he wrote a letter to his sister and he says I'm getting ready to give a speech that Mama isn't going to like M Roosevelt Senator Mars distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen I should like to talk to you briefly about civil rights and human Freedom it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights when I say all Americans are I mean all [Applause] America the theme can be summed up in two words that Truman used several times in the speech which was only 12 minutes long and those two words are all Americans he kept repeating the phrase all Americans there is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancest or religion or race or color we cannot any longer await the growth of a will to action in the slowest State or the most backward Community our national government must show the way it was a stunning speech and when he sat down Walter White sitting next to him is in disbelief and he said uh Mr President I just I can't believe what you just said and he said Walter I meant every word of it judge Jay W's wearing had become increasingly convinced that a bitter fight over racism was coming to South Carolina he would later remember that he was faced with two choices either you were going to be governed by the white supremacy Doctrine and just shut your eyes and bold this thing through or you were going to be a federal judge and decide the law that was the issue a judge doesn't normally go and pick his cases but judge wearing tells his clerk keep an eye open for new civil rights cases let me know when they have occurred that evening Wades told Elizabeth about an explosive new case he was considering for his trial docket the case Elmore V rice had originated when George Elmore a prosperous black businessman had been told by the South Carolina Democratic party that he was ineligible ble to vote in the upcoming primary denying Elmore the right to vote was in direct violation of the Supreme Court's 1944 ruling in Smith V allright which banned the White's only primary when you win a Supreme Court case like that what is supposed to happen is everyone is supposed to comply with the Judgment of the Court South Carolina doesn't the South Carolina Democratic party says well you know he that may be the what the Supreme Court said but they must have been talking to Texas they couldn't have been talking to us South Carolina's segregationist Democrats adopted the strategy of willful ignorance for a [Music] reason the black population in South Carolina stood at roughly 40% second only to Mississippi and that was a lot of potential voters who might start demanding equal rights so even though the Supreme Court had left no wiggle room in Striking down the allh primary the white power structure in the state executed a spectacular end run around the ruling it repealed every law on the books relating to the primary and then claimed the 14th Amendment did not apply to the the Democratic party of South Carolina because there was no State action this was a private club having an election voting is really the Lynch pin of the rest of the system whites have to be in power to control the mechanisms of the state to do that they have to suppress black voting so Elmore for judge wearing is going to involve a direct challenge to the system of Southern repression domination and segregation unlike almost all of the cases that came before it so judge wearing said to Elizabeth I need to tell you I've taken this case and we up to this point we've been doing this kind of privately we haven't really been discussing our views with others but if I rule for Mr Elmore Our Lives will never be the same let's looked at him and said you go for it it's the right thing to do I will be with you every step of the [Music] way in June of 1947 Jay W's wearing headed back to the same courtroom where Isaac woodard's testimony had so shaken him just 8 months earlier this time to hear Elmore V rice representing George Elmore were the naacp's top attorneys th Good Marshall and Robert Carter in court attorneys for the South Carolina Democrats expounded their novel argument the Democratic party was a private club and enjoyed the right to restrict its membership as it saw fit the federal court had no more business directing their elections than it did directing a lady's sewing Circle judge wearing was not impressed if you are a judge and a judge who's now Awakening to the reality of white supremacy and racial discrimination as W's wearing is you understand that this case actually constitutes an opportunity to talk about the role of the Supreme Court in relationship to Southern States the way in which political power is harnessed and controlled as part of white supremacy and is a way to talk about what the power of local judges are to stop white supremacists in the south from carrying out their plans wearing issued his ruling on July 12th 1947 just two weeks after Truman's appearance at the National Convention of the NAACP he found for Elmore quoting directly from Truman's speech we can no longer afford the luxury of a leisurely attack upon prejudice and discrimination we cannot any longer await the growth of a will to action in the slowest State or the most backward Community he says it's a joke it's a ridiculous argument private clubs do not elect the president of the United States and he finished the order with a resounding call for his South Carolinians he said it is time for South Carolina to rejoin the union and to adopt the American way of conducting elections there was no effort to uphold the nobility of southern white supremacy right um he's calling it out for what it [Music] is for a judge wearing standing as a figure alone in a deeply entrenched Southern Community it is his Farewell it's his farewell to the society in which he grew up and it marks an articulation of his decision to go It Alone with his wife in that Community the southern revolt against President kumman reaches its climax at Birmingham under the the state rights Banner more than 6,000 plot to the rump convention to select the presidential ticket 13 southern states are represented in the Abus session which proes the nomination of Governor serman of South Carolina and Fielding R of Missippi as party standard [Applause] Bearer by the time the next election season arrived a huge swath of Southern Democrats had had enough of what they called Federal intrusion congregation ISS had held sway in local politics for decades and they didn't intend to be pushed around by the United States Supreme Court or federal judges like Jay W's wearing or even the president the 1948 Democratic National Convention Dixiecrats walk out over the Civil Rights plank prompted by President Truman's actions originally and STM Thurman runs as a presidential candidate on behalf of the dixie crats in the words of John Paul Jones we have just begun to fight there are thousands of white people in attendance the hall is decorated in red white and blue bunting it is festooned with Confederate flags people are holding a loft pictures of Robert E Lee there's no question as to sort of the animating Spirit of this group which is to return the South to the past to maintain the racial status quo to maintain white supremacy it's another effort on the part of the president to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these un call for and these damnable proposals he has recommended under the GU of so-called civil rights and I tell you the American people from one side of the other had a head better wake up and oppos that your program and if they don't the next thing will be a totalitarian state in this United States the Dixie CRS their goal is to be a spoiler to deny either major party a majority of Electoral College votes thereby throwing the election into the House of Representatives where they can use their power to win concessions on civil rights Truman didn't blink and he didn't Retreat 9 days after the Dixie crat Revolt he gave the state's writers a little primer in Presidential Power Truman signed signed an executive order desegregating the federal Workforce and more shockingly the entirety of the United States armed forces desegregating the military is something that Truman could do with the stroke of a pan he does it because he's already seen the worst that Southerners are going to do right they've already staged a Revolt so why not go all in a lifelong friend writes him a letter and says Harry get off this civil rights thing if you don't do it you're going to lose the election Truman writes him a letter back he says you don't know what I know he then tells him the story of the blinding of Isaac Woodard he mentions these other atrocities as well and he says if I lose the election over this issue it will have been for a good cause in that way President Truman and judge wearing are the same every Instinct of political survival should have told both of them to keep their hand off the hot spot of the oven both of them went to the hot spot as the 1948 primary approach approached South Carolina Democrats were brazenly evading wearing's decision in Elmore allowing black South Carolinians to register to vote only after they signed an oath declaring their opposition to racial integration wearing summoned nearly a 100 officials of the South Carolina Democratic party and ordered them to register black citizens without swearing any oath he tells them that a federal judge faced with contempt has two choices he can impose a fine or a prison sentence he says if you violate my order again there will be no fines the message that he was prepared to jail white men for depriving African-Americans the right to vote hit the white establishment like a [Music] thunderbolt threatening letters began arriving at the courthouse and at judge wearing's home soon after obscene calls came into his phone line so frequently that he was forced to disconnect his service white Southerners as much as they despise African-Americans and despise civil rights they often level the most Venom against people they think are traitors and that would be wearing the wearings lived their lives more and more on their own terms neighbors were particularly scandalized by the unlikely visitors that were seen calling at 61 Meeting Street they became friendly with a number of African-American activist SEPTA mclark who was a fiery advocate for civil rights was very close with the wearings was a frequent visitor in the house at a time that black people only entered the homes of white people through the back door as Maids Ruby Cornwell was the matriarch of the Civil Rights community in Charleston she was a frequent visitor and a CL friend but perhaps the most interesting relationship that judge wearing develops is a close personal relationship with Walter White then the most important civil rights leader in America the wearing just got to the point they didn't care what other people thought there's a very famous photograph of the wearings featured in coler's magazine that showed a dinner party at the weing house the article was titled lonesomest man in town but he didn't look that lonesome he had lots of friends at his dinner table the only notable part was they were all African-American they're socializing They're laughing they're enjoying each other's friendship as equals and that was terrifying to White charlestonians Elizabeth's willingness to flout the social convention of Charleston society and her cander about southern racism brought unprecedented national attention to the wife of a sitting federal [Music] judge she found her voice and she put white charlestonians on notice that that was going to be a voice that she would not hesitate to use she was invited one of the first women to come on Meet the Press tonight from Washington DC Mrs J waus wearing of Charleston South Carolina wife of federal judge wearing who stirred up a hornets nest in the South by her vigorous attack on white supremacy Mrs weing you charged in your speech before the YWCA group in Charleston that the whites down here are a sick confused and decadent people and that like all decadent people they are full of Pride and complacency introverted morally weak and low what brought you to this drastic conclusion living there and observing them a very deep study of the subject any people who Enslaved the minds and bodies of another people are bound to destroy their own souls in ordinary circumstances the spouse of a judge would not do what she did but given the depth of the problem the importance that somebody speak out she felt as though she should are you crusading only for the negro's civil rights such as the freedom to vote freedom of safety of his person freedom from lynching and so forth or are you for social integration is that what you want too I want the whole thing I want him to go through the same door and so does the judge I want him to be an equal citizen reaction in South Carolina was Swift and predictable state legislators appropriated $10,000 to fund impeachment of the judge then resolved to purchase railroad tickets for the wearings anywhere they desired as long as it was out of the state with no return two men were seen burning a Klux Clan cross in the wearings back garden and on a quiet evening while the wearings were home playing Canasta in their drawing room three shots rang out in front of their home their home is right on the street and they're inside and suddenly two big bricks come through the window they don't know if people are coming through the window and through the doors next but they're petrified they Retreat to their dining room are they hiding behind a wall believing that they are Under Fire and within days the United States Attorney General provided 24-hour US Marshall protection literally Marshall sleeping out in front of his house throughout the rest of his Service as a United States district judge no federal judge had ever faced such an attack the judge 70 years old and under constant Siege understood his days on the bench were numbered he confided in Elizabeth that he meant to do one big thing before he retired with her support he fixed his sights on destroying the precedent that had underpinned legalized racism in the South for more than 50 years the strange doctrine of separate but equal they are disgusted by the the people who have been their friends and who have sat idly by and and benefited from this oppressive system and they simply can't take it anymore and he is now in this position where he can do something about it what the record now shows us at the time in which the most intense pressure was being put on Judge wearing he was making the plans of what would become the Briggs versus Elliot descent the case that changes America this is South Carolina sumon South Carolina a country Crossroads in the rich soil isolated in time and space and given to old wayes but not always uncritical here perhaps more than elsewhere in the United States the racial patterns the social patterns the economic patterns are all the same pattern Briggs versus Elliott the case that would set in motion the demise of legalized segregation Grew From the unlikeliest soil in the nation Clarendon County just 90 odd miles from where Isaac Woodard had been beaten was a place well known to judge wearing it's in what we call the Low Country he said of claron swamp lands and rivers one of the most most backward counties of the state the Negro schools were just tumbled down dirty Shacks with horrible outdoor toilet facilities I lived in sumon and I cursed the day I was born and had to live there and I vowed that when I got grown I'd never see that damn place again they have talked about us as being subhuman I guess for generation for Generation they couldn't accept the fact that I'm human just just like them just like them most of the schools operated for 3 to four months out of the year and the reason for that was these kids need to be in the in the fields plowing cotton or whatever so we can't have school when they need to work to get our cotton out of the fields some of the kids in my class didn't show up till around Thanksgiving instead of being in school they was out working the farm come early April these kids are out of the school going back to the farm to work and the system really didn't care it was not meant for us as black folks but two things going in somebody's kitchen or going in somebody's field that happened to us 100 years years or more that's what was geared for us to do they a expecting no more from you in 1947 local parents in Clarendon County decided to do something about the problem of Simply getting their children to school there was a fleet of buses for the white children in the [Music] county none for the black children some of the black children in their Community have to walk N9 miles to school they have to Ford a river a group of Summerton parents were able to raise several hundred dollar to buy a used school bus but the bus broke down constantly so the parents turned to the Reverend J A delain a principal and minister with ties to the NAACP he suggested we'll go in and we'll talk to the superintendent of schools about getting funds for gas money repair the bus and pay a salary to who drives a bus it was turned down ain't got no money for you [ __ ] literally is what he they were he was told [Music] it was told that black folks didn't pay enough taxes you couldn't even vote so there was no black folks on the school board to to direct and to address the the issues that was at hand so what power do you have my father then said well you know let's file a suit I want to talk with th Marshall thur Good Marshall The 40-Year-Old chief of the NAACP legal defense fund reluctantly answered the summons from Clarendon [Music] County all through the 1940s Marshall had been making these trips from New York Into the Heart of the Jim Crow South he had been belittled by judges and opposing counsel who didn't think he could be an attorney threatened with violence and nearly lynched white Americans who want to maintain segregation recognize that thed Marshall and his legal team are becoming very effective at chipping away at that status quo and that is why his life is in danger whenever he travels particularly when he travels in the South they would have to move him around from house to house at night during a trial because the clan was after him and they didn't want these Night Riders to find out where Marshall was so he was threatened constantly his life was always in danger now he was terrified too but he also knew that it was important for the African-American communities in those Jim Crow balconies to look down and see an African-American who was not a defendant who was in a suit who was arguing the law with white men it was often an electric experience for local African-American communities to see thuren Marshall come to town because he would do something that nobody had ever seen before which was to address white people and to make them answer and state reasons for what they were doing and to sometimes call them Liars Marshall leveled with the Reverend Elaine and the parents of Clarendon if the NAACP was going to take on their case it was going to be about more than a school bus he wanted to sue for total equality with the white schools facilities teacher salaries textbooks buses every resource the white schools had they would demand an equal measure for the black schools Marshall explained he wouldn't even consider taking the case until he had 20 reliable credible plaintiffs people people who would not cower in the face of certain intimidation from the white supremacists who ruled Clarendon County more than 20 black citizens agreed to sign [Music] on on November 17th 1950 th Good Marshall hurried along Ong Charleston's Palmetto line streets for a pre-trial hearing with judge wearing unaware that the judge had been closely following events in Summerton neither man harbored any doubts about the strength of Marshall's case the NAACP was clearly poised to win equal facilities for the black children of Clarendon County the schools for white children were generally the best schools that the tax base could establish and support the schools for black children even in some middle class school districts mocked the very notion of being schools they were visibly unequal to the naked eye one need not even step inside to see how unequal they were when Marshall arrives at the courthouse he is told by Court Personnel judge wearing wants to see you in his Chambers lawyers call this expart communication it happened judge wearing says to Marshall I don't want to try any more Equalization cases bring me a frontal challenge to segregation third Good Marshall is absolutely floored when wearing essentially tells him look I need you to make this case get rid of segregation all together he basically tells Marshall look you need to go For Broke here thurg Good Marshall had dedicated much of his life to overturning legalized segregation but he was playing the long game executing a strategy he had helped to devise 15 years earlier segregation had been sanctioned by an 1896 Supreme Court decision in a case called pie v Ferguson Homer pie a black man from New Orleans had challenged the segregated accommodations of Louisiana's railroads and lost 8 to one plusy versus Ferguson came to be seen as symbolic of the idea of separate but equal that segregation was not unconstitutional as long as blacks and whites were given equal facilities the NAACP had adopted this strategy which is basically turning pie v Ferguson on its head it's uh kind of sailing west to arrive East rather than argue against the scourge of py they argued for the Fulfillment of py that the constitution is not being satisfied not because the facilities are segregated but because they're unequal they were winning cases but the strategy had controversy because every time you use plusy to support your theory you were driving another nail into the inferior legal status of African-Americans the question that faced Marshall was when do we move away from the equalization strategy and began to argue that separate but equal is unconstitutional and Marshall was rightly cautious about when and where to make that claim because if he chose the wrong case and it went to the Supreme Court the worst thing that could happen for black Americans across the country would be for the Supreme Court to ratify py versus Ferguson to confirm it in a new age and say yes this is still the law of the land and it satisfies the Constitution what judge wearing was pushing him to do was very risky if you launched a concerted effort to overturn blessing and failed your years of all that work would have been thrown on the trash heap of History th Good Marshall says judge it's on our agenda it's just not tonight this is not the time this is not the place what he wasn't saying explicitly was this is the last place in the world we're going to try to desegregate the schools this is the down the end of the road not the beginning judge wearing said this is the time this is the case you're going to be challenging the constitutionality of a state law you're going to lose but you will plant the case directly and automatically onto the docket of the US Supreme Court and he said third good that's where you want to be at wearing's urging Marshall petitioned the court to dismiss the current case and bring a new suit one alleging that segregation in South Carolina's Public Schools was unconstitutional Marshall and his team spent the next month preparing to refile but they also needed approval from the plaintiffs to move ahead Marshall was always very powerfully conscious of the risks being taken by plaintiffs and if you knew anything about Clarendon County in that period you knew that the Briggs and others who stood up to the system in that jurisdiction were going to have hell to pay the week before Christmas 1950 dozens of parents students and teachers filed into St Mark am Church in Summerton ready to hear an update on their case from Robert Carter Marshall's key Deputy the place was packed to the rafters Mr Carter explained that the nacp thought it was time to attack segregation route and Branch but that anyone who was a plaintiff in the case need to understand they could experience severe retaliation said Mr Marshall wants you to know that you can withdraw that was made clear to the petitioners if you think you're experiencing retribution now if this case come from here it's going to probably be more reprisal that will come and don't know what for would take this was no great Revelation to the Reverend Delaine or to the Navy veteran Harry Briggs whose name was on the legal filing simply because he was first up in the alphabet or to any of the other petitioners who had signed onto the original lawsuit What marshall had warned about nearly 2 years earlier had come to pass did your husband sign this petition yes he did sign the petition what happened to him after that right after he signed the petition they told him that unless you take his name off he would lose his job when Christmas Eve da give him a carton of cigarettes and says we got somebody to replace you then money dries up couldn't get work he took a ponm to get paid because they wasn't going to hire having bricks in the county what did you tell him well I told ask we was in we only doing it for development of the children not our J but all J [Music] there were a lot of [Music] evictions my father was threatened the black men in town had formed themselves into a cadry guarding our house at night with guns Reverend delain had his home burned with volunteer firemen standing out front refusing to provide service they did that to send a message you know and when his house caught on fire we thought ours would be next they have children they have families they have responsibilities they have to think about all that you know if I lose my farm what happens next maybe I'll be killed and also maybe I'm also the bread wear of my family it's not just that I'm going to be killed my family's going to be destitute now here was Robert Carter who didn't have to stay behind and live in Clarendon County asking these parents to be the first wave of a frontal attack on the most Jagged ramp parts of segregation there was a pregnant silence when Carter finished his presentation and then when old man at the back of the church raised his hand he said we wondered how long it would take you lawyers to get there they were ready [Music] when you had enough you just had enough I mean you just can't take it anymore where can you go you can't back up you just can't you got to go forward and that was the their mindset not any of those families back there [Music] Clarendon County is almost like the Isaac Woodard case the starkness of the facts the depth of the racism goes to the very heart of the unfairness and the ugliness of white supremacy and in that case for Marshall it's going right into the eye of the storm Marshall didn't expect to win Briggs V Elliott in the federal court of South Carolina but his team did need to build a record of evidence one that would give the United States Supreme Court a solid rationale for ending segregation in public schools and essentially burying its own separate but equal precedent Marshall has to show well no matter what you did with resources just the mere fact of a statute that requires segregation is unconstitutional why is it unconstitutional or for us it would be easy this is just subordination of black people but for them it was hard because they didn't question it they weren't thinking that segregation was harmful to black people he said if you were an automobile accident I would have to show how the accident injured you here in this case he has to show how segregation has injured his clients what harm has it caused enter 37-year-old psychologist Kenneth Clark and his now famous [Music] dolls Kenneth and M Clark the first black Americans to earn phds in Psychology from Columbia University had recently begun conducting a series of research experiments to determine the effect of segregation on black children the tools of the Clark's experimental trade were breathtakingly simple a suitcase full of dolls four of them gender neutral identical in every way except for skin color two were white and two were Brown Dr Kenneth Clark explained their extraordinary findings to NAACP attorney Robert Carter who lobbied his colleagues to make the Clark's research Central to their legal strategy there's a great deal of debate around the table at legal defense headquarters in New York City they are thinking what are we going to do with what they call these damn dolls Marshall sits at the end of the table says very little Just Smokes and smokes and smokes as the attorneys hash it out hash it out until finally Marshall says I have to show injury the dolls are how I'm going to show the injury to to the children we're taking the dolls with us to South Carolina by Daybreak on May 28th 1951 a caravan of cars filled with parents teachers and children was well on its way from Summerton to Charleston where they were finally going to get their day in court as they pulled up to the federal courthouse the citizens of Clarendon County were AED to discover they were not the only ones who had made the journey from across the state African-Americans got up early in the morning and drove to Charleston and by the time the sun rose that morning they were lined up as far as the ey could see out the sidewalk around the corner and these folks stood out there in hot hot May weather you ever been to South in May it is hot sticky hot thuren Marshall arriving that morning for the trial was amazed he had never seen such a crowd and he turned to Robert Carter and said Bob it's all over Carter his young associate said they're good what are you talking about he said they're not scared anymore for Marshall to see the throngs the crowds coming out for the first day of trial showed him that something had shifted in the South they're not afraid anymore to fight for their full citizenship and to make the statement of how important this is to them with the courtroom packed Beyond capacity that hot spring morning Marshall began arguing his case before a panel of three federal judges one of whom was Judge W's wearing he sparred with defense Witnesses from the school district and presented his own expert testimonies on the egregious disparities between the counties black and white schools Marshall did not stop there he proceeded to show the court that the damage to the black children in Clarendon County was real and quantifiable his key witness took the stand that afternoon Dr Kenneth Clark described for the court the doll experiments he and his wife had conducted on hundreds of black school children across the country asking them to evaluate and compare the virtues of the black and white dolls Kenneth and B Clark conduct these studies over a period of months and it traumatizes them to have to do this over and over again and get the same answers over and over again from different children attending different schools and different states without fail the black children preferred the white [Music] dog not only does the NAACP have all of the information it needs on the brick and mortar issues now they have evidence that said look this is inherently damaging to black children right and this is a stigma and this is a damage from which they will never recover the trial was shorter than anticipated just 2 Days Marshall had given it his best shot as he joined the throngs streaming out of the courtroom the three judges retired to wearing Chambers to discuss the case the conference went just as expected neither of the other two judges had been persuaded by Marshall's arguments separate but equal withstand in South [Music] Carolina the Briggs plaintiffs had lost as Marshall suspected they would 2 to one but as wearing had planned the appeal was headed straight to the Supreme Court and he meant to arm the NAACP attorneys with something for the battle in Washington a dissenting opinion for the ages he knew he was writing for history he knew this was his moment and he labored for days carefully constructing and rewriting and revising over and over again this descent he wrote it with care and with PR precision and with passion wearing's descent is quite remarkable it's a direct indictment of segregation and it's important to say that because so many people were finessing the issue he described the testimony of Dr Clark about the injury to black children and he said this must end it must end now segregation is per se inequality wearing set off the last sentence in a separate paragraph for effect and it was in a way his final word on the vicious regime of legalized white supremacy in the deep [Music] south soon after he filed his descent in Briggs Waring wrote President Harry Truman with the news that he was stepping down from his Federal judgeship the wearings left Charleston for good retiring to a small apartment in New York City th Good Marshall was fundraising in Alabama when word reached him that the Supreme Court had finally ruled on the constitutionality of segregation in public schools it had been a long and frustrating wait 3 years since the trial in judge wearing's courtroom the name Briggs had been subsumed by then the NAACP had brought four similar desegregation cases in Virginia Delaware the District of Columbia and Kansas the five cases had been Consolidated and filed as brown V Board of Education of Topeka Kansas Briggs was the first case to arrive at the Supreme Court by all accounts it should have been Briggs versus Elliott my personal theory is that the court did not want this case um Banning School segregation to be focused on a southern case toeka Kansas was not in the South and the South would claim it was being picked in but how do you say that if the lead defendant is TOA Kansas [Music] the Supreme Court has rendered a momentous and historic decision saying that education should be equal in this free America the fact it was a unanimous decision should set for rest once and for all the problem as to whether or not second class citizenship segregation could be consistent any longer with the law of the [Music] [Music] country Marshall and the NAACP had certainly been hopeful I don't think there was any reason for them to expect it to be unanimous that must have been a surprise the decision is written in a manner and at a length such that it can be printed in every newspaper in the [Music] country so that it could be read and understood by any literate person in the United States so that it could be read to someone who might not be able to read him or herself and that person would be able to understand why and how the justices had reached this conclusion citing evidence from the Clark's doll studies chief justice Earl Warren was explicit about the very real damage suffered by children segregated by race any language in py v Ferguson cont contrary to this finding he wrote is rejected but Warren steered clear of any mention of W's wearing who had been the only federal judge in the five cases to file a descent arguing that segregation itself was unconstitutional you got to remember at this time judge wearing is a very polarizing figure he's probably the most reviled white man in the South among white others the court didn't make his is descent the basis of their decision but it is obvious when you read it it is jian's language back in New York City Walter White and other luminaries from New York's civil rights Community gathered in The wearings Parlor to toast the historic Milestone and the final Triumph of Judge wearing's judicial strategy a few miles away thir Good Marshall and his team held their own Victory party allowing themselves only the briefest of revelries for Marshall the brown ruling did not Mark the end of a hardfought battle but the beginning of a new one everyone was celebrating in the office and Marshall said you're all a bunch of fools you know we have a lot more work ahead get we have to get back to work he understood what was to come as a lead leader you can barely experience excitement without looking around the corner for whatever is the next challenge or work that has to be done hello welcome to like it is today's edition features a look back in time into the tragedy of Isaac Woodard man whose confrontation with Southern racism came to symbolize the brutality in America at the end of World War II I saw nearly 40 years after his blinding Isaac wood had agreed to revisit the details of his ordeal with a local television journalist do you think back towards those days to have something like this happen to you while you're still in uniform and a lot of people ask me was I bit with you know with the world or with everybody I told them no I was I wasn't because I said well everybody ain't bad you know that I know and one that I would really built against the one that really did it to me he never served a day no no no kept his job right right he kept his job didn't even take him off the PO you know well the first few years he called up names I couldn't even mention but uh he grew out of it I saw the part of him after the bitterness and the anger and the frustration most of the time I saw him he was smiling [Music] he was so well dressed there was a tie clip on the tie you could tell though he walked he was proud of who he was in 1962 the US Army finally granted Sergeant Woodard the disability benefits they had denied him in the Years following his blinding eventually he was able to buy several properties throughout the Bronx and provide a comfortable life for himself and his family what do you think that people should learn about this happened to Isaac Woody what lesson is there about America well I mean way I feel about it you know that people should learn how to live with one another not to cheat one another because after all we all are human beings regardless color everybody should do for one another you know don't do cruel things to one another that you want be de to you that's the way I feel about it Isaac Woodard died in 1992 at age 73 entirely unaware that his simple request to be treated like a man and the Injustice that followed it had emboldened the federal judge and the president of the United States to pursue the destruction of legalized segregation [Music] historians like to talk in terms of grand narratives but when you look closely you find often it is a single person taking a certain action it's not often sufficient to ca C Grand change but it is a spark every fundamental shift in this country has required the courage of ordinary people to demand that they be respected exceptional human beings who are willing to put their lives on the line the ways in which they changed this country we accept almost like air without ever giving a moment's thought to the individuals who sacrificed themselves for it you don't know what the effect of your speaking up and using your voice will be it may even look like it was nominal but in the long course of history can be Earth shattering and powerful and important [Music] [Music]

Channel: American Experience | PBS

Views: 152,934

Keywords: american history, us history, documentary, history documentary, civil rights, racial injustice, segregation, desegregation, us military, veterans, harry truman, orson welles, judge julius waties waring, walter white, naacp, supreme court, briggs v. elliot, brown v. board of education, sherrilyn ifill, kenneth mack, richard gergel, the blind g.i., jim crow

Id: 80GKeyIqDW0

Length: 113min 27sec (6807 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024