Coming on April 13th, 2019 in Montgomery:
Sat 6 PMDexter Avenue Baptist Church · Montgomery, Alabama
From The American Prospect article HERE.
"On February 12, 1946, at Camp Gordon, Georgia, Isaac Woodard was honorably discharged from the army. An impoverished, rural Southerner, he had served in World War II as a longshoreman, loading and unloading military ships sometimes under fire. He had been awarded three citations that he wore on his uniform as he boarded a Greyhound bus headed to Winnsboro, South Carolina, where he looked to be reunited with his wife. During the bus ride, Gergel observes, Woodard “displayed a degree of assertiveness and self-confidence that most southern whites were not accustomed to nor prepared to accept.”
When the bus driver cursed at Woodard after he requested a toilet break to relieve himself, the veteran cursed back, exclaiming, “I am a man just like you.” For that demand of reciprocity, he paid dearly. Upon exiting the bus after the driver had reported Woodard to local police, the veteran was hit over the head with a blackjack without provocation by Lynwood Shull, the Batesburg, South Carolina, chief of police. Shull then proceeded to whack Woodard with the blackjack several more times as he dragged him to jail. One of those assaults occurred after Shull asked Woodard whether he had been discharged from the army. When the veteran answered “yes,” Shull immediately struck him, adding the admonition that the correct response was “yes, sir.”
Subsequently, after Woodard was further beaten, Shull jabbed the baton into the veteran’s eyes, one after the other, blinding him. After spending a night in jail, Woodard was taken before a local judge who fined him $50. The veteran was then transported to a hospital at which physicians determined the full, terrible extent of his injuries."
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