Unexampled Courage
Channel: US National Archives
Date: 2019-05-21

Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President
Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring
On February 12, 1946, Sgt. Isaac Woodard, a returning, decorated African American veteran,
was removed from a bus in Batesburg, SC, after challenging the bus driver’s disrespectful
treatment of him. Woodard, in uniform, was arrested and beaten and blinded while in custody.
Richard Gergel details the impact of Woodard’s blinding as the racial awakening of President
Truman and the changing course of America’s civil rights history. A book signing follows the
program.