The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
Cast
André Holland
as Narrator (voice)
Leland Gantt
as Isaac Woodward (voice)
Kenneth Mack
as Self
Sherrilyn Ifill
as Self
Rawn James
as Self
Richard Gergel
as Self
Belinda Gergel
as Self
Robert Young Sr.
as Self
Patricia Sullivan
as Self
Laura Williams
as Self
