[Colorado-Talk] The Blinding of Isaac Woodard

[Peggy Chong]

Hello:

 

Today I was privileged to preview the film, "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard"
that will air Tuesday, March 30 on PBS American Experience at 8pm mountain
time, check your local listings.  I am on Comcast and it is channel 6.  I
strongly recommend you watch or set your DVR to record this program.  I
think we will all be talking about Isaac Woodard and what kind of hero he
became for a long time.  

 

For those of you who do not know who Isaac Woodard was, here is just a bit
of information.  

 

Isaac Woodard (1919-1992), born in North Carolina, was a black, decorated
WWII soldier, just released from the army and on his way home to South
Carolina to see his wife, when he was pulled from a bus, beaten so
horrifically and blinded.  Woodard became a symbol of racism in the United
States in 1946-1948.  He contributed greatly to our Civil Rights legislation
in this country, although he may have never known.  

 

This episode is based on the book Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt.
Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J.
Waties Waring by Judge Richard Gergel.  Unfortunately, this is not on BARD
yet.  

 

Today, Monday was the beginning of the George Floyd trial in Minneapolis.
The Isaac Woodard film was already in production before the death of George
Floyd.  Yet how timely this presentation is to today's conversation of
racism in America.

 

As I watched the preview, I asked myself many questions such as, why a blind
man became the focus of racism at that time.  What made his blindness the
trigger?  I thought of the phrase, "out of sight-out of mind."  I wondered.
When black Americans are and were lynched, killed, and then buried, are they
out of sight?  Was blindness too common to all, not just blacks that the
rest of the population could not overlook Isaac?

 

Let us keep telling the story of Isaac Woodard, a black man who just wanted
to go home and it cost him his sight.

 

Please watch and tell me what you think.     

 

 

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