Exactly 78 years ago today, August 16, 1946, Isaac Woodard was welcomed in person at BVA’s then National Headquarters in New York City as a new member of the Blinded Veterans Association by then Executive Director Lloyd Greenwood. At the time, only veterans blinded in combat were eligible to join BVA at the time, but Greenwood and the Association’s Board of Directors considered the nature and circumstances of Woodard’s injuries fully consistent with the criteria for membership. 

Woodard, a Black Army Sergeant on his way home to South Carolina hours after an honorable discharge and still in uniform from his service in the Pacific Theater in World War II, was taken off a bus after a heated exchange with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.

The shocking incident six months prior to the BVA meeting made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of United States history. The crime led to the racial awakening of South Carolina Judge J. Waties Waring and President Harry Truman, the latter of whom desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. It also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education.

For more information, check out Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage and a subsequent 2021 PBS documentary movie, The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, which is based on the book. The movie is currently streamed on the PBS website via a page accessible by clicking the button below.