The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
Overview
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
Trailer
Cast
André Holland
Leland Gantt
Kenneth Mack
Sherrilyn Ifill
Rawn James
Richard Gergel
Belinda Gergel
Robert Young Sr.
Patricia Sullivan
Laura Williams
Gilbert King
Kari Frederickson
J. A. De Laine Jr.
Nathanial Briggs
Harry S. Truman
Orson Welles
Isaac Woodard
Crew
Jamila Ephron
Jamila Ephron
Caitlin Riggsbee
Nancy Novack
Richard Gergel
Jamila Ephron
Mark Zwonitzer
Stephen McCarthy
