The 2020 James Otis Lecture will feature Richard Gergel, United States district judge, providing an informative presentation about his book “Unexampled Courage,” which details the impact of the blinding of Sergeant Woodard on the racial awakening of President Truman and Judge Waring, and traces their influential roles in changing the course of America’s civil rights history.
About the Book
“Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodward and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring”
-
On February 12, 1946, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, a returning, decorated African American veteran, was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, after he challenged the bus driver’s disrespectful treatment of him. Woodard, in uniform, was arrested by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and beaten and blinded while in custody.
-
President Harry Truman was outraged by the incident. He established the first presidential commission on civil rights and his Justice Department filed criminal charges against Shull. In July 1948, following his commission’s recommendation, Truman ordered an end to segregation in the U.S. armed forces. An all-white South Carolina jury acquitted Shull, but the presiding judge, J. Waties Waring, was conscience-stricken by the failure of the court system to do justice by the soldier. Waring described the trial as his “baptism of fire,” and began issuing major civil rights decisions from his Charleston courtroom, including his 1951 dissent in Briggs v. Elliott declaring public school segregation per se unconstitutional. Three years later, the Supreme Court adopted Waring’s language and reasoning in Brown v. Board of Education.
About the Speaker
Richard Gergel is a United States district judge who presides in the same courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina, where Judge Waring once served. A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Judge Gergel earned undergraduate and law degrees from Duke University.
Standards
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how individuals become citizens in the U.S. and how the U.S. has expanded and limited citizenship over time. Further, examination promotes inquiry into the rights and responsibilities held by citizens of the U.S.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how individual rights have evolved through social movements, constitutional provisions, and landmark legislation. Further investigation prompts inquiry into how marginalized Americans have struggl...
- USG.4.IP Describe and evaluate the ways citizens can participate in the political process at the local, state, national, and global levels.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how to gauge the fairness and effectiveness of the electoral process in the U.S. and the outcomes elections have on the U.S. government. This indicator was also developed to prompt inquiry into the historic struggles over the extension of suffrage and the impact of federal policies on campaigning and electoral rules.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how state and local governments are organized and how they function under the American constitutional government. This indicator encourages further inquiry into how federalism provides for several levels of government supported by many state and local officials.