The army veteran … Orson Welles revived the Woodard story during a BBC television broadcast on May 7, 1955. (Library of Congress), Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, U.S. Third Army commander, pins the Silver Star on Pvt. On the evening of Feb. 12, 1946, Isaac Woodard, a 26-year-old black Army veteran, boarded a bus in Augusta, Georgia. It happens as we get older and our families leave us, and partners pass away. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer. Pearson’s funeral service and burial are attended by thousands of people, including blind veterans who he had helped and inspired. First Sea Lord Admiral Tony Radakin tweeted out a video of Royal Marines testing the kit at the HMS Tamar Trials. He enlisted in the United States Army on October 14, 1942 at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina and served in the Pacific Theater in a labor battallion as a longshoreman. Nov. 6, 1946 The Blinding of Isaac Woodard historical marker was dedicated in Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina on … Earlier that day, he’d been honorably discharged, and he was heading to Winnsboro, South Carolina to reunite with his wife. Some of that violence was directed against black soldiers, some of whom were murdered in their uniforms. (National Archives), one million African-Americans who served in the U.S. military during World War II, disowned by his family and friends in Charleston. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. Don Carlo, a blind veteran, served as the first editor of the student newspaper, Vet's Extended. It was then that his journey with Blind Veterans UK, then known as St Dunstan’s, began. But by 1954, Waring, disowned by his family and friends in Charleston, had moved to New York City. On July 28, Welles demanded that those responsible for Woodard’s attack be prosecuted. The show tells the story of the 1946 blinding of a Black South Carolina World War II veteran, Sgt. “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. Welles also wrote a syndicated newspaper column and broadcast a weekly political commentary on the radio. Waring expressed derision toward both the prosecutor, who failed to make his case, and Shull’s defense attorney, who told the jury that if his client was convicted, white women and children would no longer be safe. The Shull trial galvanized Waring. His ninth book, Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography, was published in 2017. Welles also wrote a syndicated newspaper column and broadcast a weekly political commentary on the radio. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. Originally posted on Navy Times, our sister publication. Susanna. Bartender at Larry's Club (uncredited) 1951 Roar of the Iron Horse - Rail-Blazer of the Apache Trail. I have a voice on the radio. For people with sight loss, that isolation is all the more painful to bear. In 1946, an African-American World War II veteran named Isaac Woodard was blinded in the small town of Batesburg, South Carolina. Jenny Joseph, English poet and novelist (The Thinking Heart, The Inland Sea). The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The Blind Annuity Program benefit is for legally blind NYS wartime veterans or the surviving un-remarried spouse of the blind veteran. There, Woody Guthrie sang for the first time a song he had titled “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard.”, “I thought I fought on the islands to get rid of their kind,” the song concludes. In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was taken off a Greyhound bus after a heated exchange with the driver, who refused to let him off at a rest stop to use the restroom. Welles vowed to fight for Woodard because he had fought for his country. “But I can see the fight lots plainer now that I am blind.”. Ernest A. Jenkins of New York City on Oct. 13, 1944, for his conspicuous gallantry in the liberation of Chateaudun, France. Some of that violence was directed against black soldiers, some of whom were murdered in their uniforms. Blind veteran, Ken Help us support veterans like Ken Donate now Feelings of isolation. Briggs v. Elliott was combined with four other cases and decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). 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