Ep 49: Isaac Woodard... In His Uniform.

On this episode of #IDKMYDE we talk about Issac Woodard, a decorated black veteran who was beaten by police while in his uniform, and in a trial of whether police used exceive force... they were acquitted by jury!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
Let's talk about how decorated black veteran was beaten and
blinded by the Batesburg, South Carolina Police Department, and they
never did a day in jail for it. Are you
familiar with the name Isaac Woodard because I wasn't. By

(00:22):
the time he was twenty six, he had been medically
discharged from the army. He had participated in World War Two.
February twelfth, he gets back to these United States of America.
By this time he was a veteran that had been
decorated for courage under fire during his service in the Pacific.
On a Greyhound bus ride from Augusta, Georgia back home
to Winsboro, South Carolina, he asked the driver, Hey, at

(00:44):
the next rest stop, can we stop so I can
use the bathroom. Bus driver says no. They go back
and forth in the verbal dispute. At the next stop
in Batesburg, South Carolina, the bus driver tells Isaac wood
to get off the bus. This man is still in uniform. Again,
they go back and forth, and the Bayburg Police were called.
Now Isaac Wooders, the county is the police asked him
where you discharged? He replied yes, and that's when the

(01:07):
officer hit him in the face with the billy club.
Isaac Wooder takes the billy club away from the police officer.
When another officer approaches with his gun out says drop
it or I'm gonna drop you. Isaac drops the billy
club and then they beat his odds to blindness with
their billy clubs. They take him off to jail, bloodied
and blinded, and beat him some more. This happened in
February of ninety six. By November of ninety in a

(01:31):
trial over whether excessive or unnecessary force was used on Woodard,
the Batesburg police chief claimed that he only hit wood
at once, and an all white jury acquitted him, and
they only deliberated for thirty minutes. Isaac Woodard dot September
twenty three, at the age of seventy three, as forty
seven years of living blind at the hands of the

(01:52):
police in a country that you were defending, even still
in your uniform, where you had just been decorated for
your courage the fire and I didn't know. Maybe you
didn't either, h