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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[whirring sound]

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[clicking]

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ORSON WELLES: Good morning,
this is Orson Welles speaking.

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I'd like to read to you an affidavit.

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"I, Isaac Woodard Jr.,
being duly sworn do depose"

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"and state as follows."

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"I am 27 years old and a veteran
of the United States Army,"

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"having served for 15 months
in the South Pacific,"

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"and earned one battle star."

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"While I was in uniform
I purchased a ticket"

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"to Winnsboro, South Carolina,
and took the bus headed there"

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"to pick up my wife to come to New York"

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"to see my father and mother."

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"About one hour out of Atlanta,
the bus drivers got off"

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"and went and got the police."

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"The policeman grabbed me
by my left arm and twisted it"

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"behind my back."

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"I figured he was trying
to make me resist."

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"I did not resist against him."

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"Another policeman held his gun on me"

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"while the other one was beating me."

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"I started to get up, he started
punching me in my eyes."

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"He knocked me unconscious."

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"I woke up next morning
and could not see."

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"They took me to the veteran's hospital"

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"in Columbia, South Carolina."

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"They told me I should join
a blind school."

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RICHARD GERGEL:
You have a man

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wearing a dress uniform.

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He has medals on his chest.

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All the symbols of sacrifice
and service are there

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and it doesn't matter,
it just doesn't matter.

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KARI FREDERICKSON:
To a white Southerner in 1946,

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nothing is more provocative
than a Black man in uniform.

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SHERRILYN IFILL: You have law
enforcement coming with the full savagery

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of Southern racism.

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No one can say that
what happened to Isaac Woodard

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was justified.

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KENNETH MACK:
It just seemed to be something

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that shouldn't happen in America.

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WELLES: Now it seems
the officer of the law

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was just another white man with a stick

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who wanted to teach a Negro boy a lesson,

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to show a Negro boy where
he belonged: in the darkness.

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MACK: Are we going to have
people who live in the United States

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and are less equal than others?

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What are we going to do about this?

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WELLES: You say the
North is bullying the South.

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I'm afraid you're missing the point.

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This isn't another battlefield
of the Civil War.

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The sides aren't the blue and the gray.

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They are the right and the wrong.

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GERGEL:
Who would have guessed

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that the blinding of a heroic veteran

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would be the beginning of the
end of Jim Crow in America?

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♪

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[cheering]

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NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Going home...

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that's the sweetest words
a G.I. ever heard.

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[train horn blaring]

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Back to the good old U.S.A.,

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where just the formality of mustering out,

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and then home sweet home.

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♪

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NARRATOR: For the G.I.s
discharged just hours earlier,

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the wait inside the Greyhound
bus terminal was excruciating.

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They were on the final leg
of a journey that had taken them

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halfway around the world and back.

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Freedom was so close
they could nearly taste it.

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LAURA WILLIAMS:
The soldiers that were there,

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they had to have been jubilant and proud.

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Happy to return home, on your soil.

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So, it had to have been just
an exciting time for all of them

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to go home and see their
families, finally.

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♪

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NARRATOR: On the 8:00
Augusta to Columbia coach that night

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was Sergeant Isaac Woodard,

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headed home to Winnsboro,
South Carolina, to see his wife

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for the first time in several years.

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[engine rumbles, crickets chirp]

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Woodard was still in uniform,

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carrying a battle star
for bravery under fire,

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and a final paycheck
from the U.S. Army

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in the extraordinary sum of $695,

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enough to start the kind of life

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he hadn't dared dream of before the war.

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Like the other 900,000
African-American soldiers

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returning home from duty,

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Isaac Woodard had come to see
this bright new future

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as his due.

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[gunfire, explosions]

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MACK: African Americans had
fought in all of the major wars

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in American history, and there'd
always been this theme of

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if we fight and we show our loyalty,

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then we are going to advance
and be recognized

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as more equal citizens.

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And that dream had always been frustrated.

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♪

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But World War II was actually
quite different from past wars

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for African Americans because
it was a special kind of war.

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This war, this particular war,

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crystalizes around the idea
of this fight against fascism.

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And that means that it is
a fight against inequality,

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of suppressing groups of people
because of their race.

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So you have Black soldiers coming home,

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having been inculcated
with the idea that America

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stands for something different
than fascism,

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something different than racial
and ethnic discrimination.

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Something better.

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[crickets chirping]

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♪

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NARRATOR: By 10:00
on that February evening,

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Isaac Woodard was little more
than an hour away

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from his homecoming in Winnsboro.

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JAMES: The atmosphere
on the bus is jovial,

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filled with the relief that soldiers feel

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after surviving 15 months at war.

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♪

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Black soldiers and white
soldiers are talking together,

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joking together.

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Eventually a bottle of whiskey
gets opened and passed around.

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There were a few non-soldiers on the bus

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and they were very uncomfortable

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with the interaction between
the white and Black soldiers.

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There were complaints to the bus driver

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and the bus driver didn't like it.

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♪

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FREDERICKSON:
There are, of course, in 1946,

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no bathroom facilities

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on public buses.

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Isaac Woodard asked the
bus driver if at the next stop

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he could be allowed to disembark
and to go to the bathroom.

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JAMES:
And the bus driver tells him,

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"Boy, go sit back down."

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♪

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FREDERICKSON:
The bus driver cursed him.

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Isaac Woodard cursed him back

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and proclaimed his manhood.

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WILLIAMS: He just said to the
gentleman, "You know, you don't have to

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speak to me in that manner,
I'm a man just like you."

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In other words,
"Give me respect."

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JAMES:
Military training and service

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turned a Black man from
the rural Deep South

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with a fifth grade education

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into a man willing to say words

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that he knew could put his life at risk.

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There is no doubt

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when he said that,
that he was under any illusions

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about what he was saying,
where he was saying it...

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on a bus, at night, in the Deep South.

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But he was a veteran.

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He was wearing the uniform.

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He was surrounded by veterans
who were wearing the uniforms.

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They were returning from a war
that they had won.

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And he was a stronger man because of it.

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GERGEL:
The bus driver is furious.

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At the next town,

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he goes looking for a police officer

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to have Woodard removed from his bus.

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Woodard's kind of perplexed.

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He steps off the bus

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and as he's trying to explain himself,

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the police chief brings out his blackjack,

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which is like a baton,

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but it's spring-loaded
and it, it has tremendous force,

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and hits Woodard over the head with it.

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[thunder rumbles]

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NARRATOR: A soldier aboard the
bus watched as the officer took Woodard

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by the arm and forced him around
the corner and out of sight.

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"That is the last I saw of him,"

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he would tell investigators
a few months later.

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♪

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They started beating him
all across the head.

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And they gouge his eyes out.

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They didn't beat them out.

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They put the stick in there
and twisted it.

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♪

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They threw him in jail and he told me

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they poured whiskey over him
to say he was drunk.

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He was arrested for, supposedly,
disorderly conduct,

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disturbing the peace, and being drunk.

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He was not drunk.

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He was not being disorderly.

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And he did not disturb the peace.

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FREDERICKSON: He spends
the night in jail, unable to see,

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in excruciating pain.

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The next morning he is taken to the judge.

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He is levied a fine,
but he can't see to sign

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the paperwork that is put before him.

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Ultimately, when Woodard
is examined by specialists,

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they determine that he will
never see again.

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The injuries are severe
and they are irreversible.

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He will be blind for life.

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♪

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YOUNG: You spend
42 months in the military,

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overseas in the Philippines,
and you come home to this.

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How can you just gouge someone's eyes out?

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Anybody, how can...
you can't do that.

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And it hurts me to even think
about it, but it happened.

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It's sad.

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Well, that was, I'd say,
a part of ignorance.

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You know, that's the bottom
line, plain ignorance.

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GERGEL:
As World War II ended,

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900,000 African-American veterans

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returned to America...

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75% of them to the South,

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most of them to the rural South.

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♪

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MACK: The war took Black
soldiers out of communities

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where they had to adhere
to a certain set of social norms

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in which they were subservient

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and opened up possibilities.

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♪

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GERGEL:
Even a segregated army

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gave chances for training and leadership,

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and advancement and recognition.

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00:12:07,243 --> 00:12:09,314
[crowd cheering]

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Those in Europe had been treated
very respectfully.

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00:12:13,594 --> 00:12:16,080
And for the first time in their lives,

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00:12:16,149 --> 00:12:18,738
the color of their skin was not
the predominant

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characteristic to which
they were identified.

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They came home feeling
like they had done their duty

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in defense of American democracy
and liberty.

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But, when they returned home,

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they largely saw nothing had changed.

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♪

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White Southerners of that era considered

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the returning soldiers
to be potential trouble,

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not great American citizens.

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As some would say,
they no longer knew their place.

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00:13:02,333 --> 00:13:06,440
MACK: Black soldiers were
especially threatening to

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00:13:06,509 --> 00:13:09,409
the racial mores
that undermined segregation.

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Black soldiers were in uniform.

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00:13:14,897 --> 00:13:18,728
They wore emblems of authority.

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They often carried themselves
with a sense of authority

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that the enforcers of white supremacy

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00:13:25,874 --> 00:13:27,703
found particularly threatening.

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FREDERICKSON: Wearing
the uniform of the U.S. military

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grants one the prerogatives
of citizenship.

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00:13:37,161 --> 00:13:43,892
And Black men make no bones
about the fact that they feel

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00:13:43,961 --> 00:13:47,654
completely deserving
of those prerogatives.

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00:13:47,723 --> 00:13:51,796
And they become the target.

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00:13:53,763 --> 00:13:58,009
So, in 1946, what you see is one incident

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of racial violence after another.

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00:14:00,701 --> 00:14:06,466
♪

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00:14:06,535 --> 00:14:09,676
NARRATOR: There was little
recourse... and little protection...

249
00:14:09,745 --> 00:14:10,884
for the African-American veterans

250
00:14:10,953 --> 00:14:14,060
victimized in the South.

251
00:14:15,855 --> 00:14:18,616
Investigating these hate crimes
often fell to a small team

252
00:14:18,685 --> 00:14:20,307
of lawyers at the

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00:14:20,376 --> 00:14:23,828
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People,

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00:14:23,897 --> 00:14:28,453
headed by Thurgood Marshall.

255
00:14:28,522 --> 00:14:33,148
SULLIVAN: The N.A.A.C.P.
is just inundated with cases

256
00:14:33,217 --> 00:14:35,426
of violence against Black soldiers,

257
00:14:35,495 --> 00:14:38,325
wrongful court martials,

258
00:14:38,394 --> 00:14:43,227
massive riots, slaughter.

259
00:14:43,296 --> 00:14:48,715
And Thurgood Marshall's office
had files from floor to ceiling

260
00:14:48,784 --> 00:14:50,441
of these cases.

261
00:14:50,510 --> 00:14:54,479
♪

262
00:14:54,548 --> 00:14:58,276
NARRATOR: A harrowing new report
landed in the N.A.A.C.P. legal office

263
00:14:58,345 --> 00:15:00,900
almost every week in 1946.

264
00:15:00,969 --> 00:15:05,007
One Black Army veteran
was murdered on his front porch

265
00:15:05,076 --> 00:15:07,527
in Taylor County, Georgia.

266
00:15:07,596 --> 00:15:11,911
His offense had been casting a
vote in the Democratic primary.

267
00:15:14,051 --> 00:15:17,433
A week later, 120 miles away,

268
00:15:17,502 --> 00:15:19,919
a Black veteran was kidnapped
by a lynch mob...

269
00:15:19,988 --> 00:15:21,990
along with a friend and their two wives,

270
00:15:22,059 --> 00:15:24,854
one of them reportedly
seven months pregnant.

271
00:15:26,684 --> 00:15:30,791
The four were shot roughly
60 times at close range.

272
00:15:30,860 --> 00:15:33,242
Eyewitness accounts reported
that the lynching party

273
00:15:33,311 --> 00:15:35,555
included local police officers.

274
00:15:35,624 --> 00:15:38,385
♪

275
00:15:48,913 --> 00:15:51,157
♪

276
00:15:51,226 --> 00:15:53,228
In the middle of what
Thurgood Marshall called

277
00:15:53,297 --> 00:15:56,265
that "terrible" season of 1946,

278
00:15:56,334 --> 00:15:58,405
Isaac Woodard walked into
the New York City offices

279
00:15:58,474 --> 00:16:02,375
of N.A.A.C.P. head Walter White.

280
00:16:02,444 --> 00:16:06,448
The 27-year-old South Carolina
native struck White

281
00:16:06,517 --> 00:16:09,071
as polite and handsome,

282
00:16:09,140 --> 00:16:12,074
with the ramrod straight bearing
of a soldier.

283
00:16:12,143 --> 00:16:15,457
"I saw you, Mr. White,

284
00:16:15,526 --> 00:16:19,944
when you visited my outfit
in the Pacific," he said.

285
00:16:20,013 --> 00:16:23,016
"I could see then."

286
00:16:23,085 --> 00:16:26,330
Woodard then sat down and
told the story of his blinding

287
00:16:26,399 --> 00:16:30,886
in a sworn affidavit.

288
00:16:30,955 --> 00:16:33,682
ISAAC WOODARD [dramatized]: The
policeman asked me, was I discharged?

289
00:16:33,751 --> 00:16:35,442
And when I said yes,

290
00:16:35,511 --> 00:16:38,445
that's when he started beating
me with a billy,

291
00:16:38,514 --> 00:16:40,758
hitting me across the top of the head.

292
00:16:40,827 --> 00:16:45,004
After that, I grabbed his billy,
and wrung it out of his hands.

293
00:16:45,073 --> 00:16:48,041
Another policeman came up
and threw his gun on me,

294
00:16:48,110 --> 00:16:50,492
told me to drop the billy or he'd drop me,

295
00:16:50,561 --> 00:16:53,288
so I dropped the billy.

296
00:16:53,357 --> 00:16:56,739
He knocked me unconscious.

297
00:16:56,808 --> 00:16:58,983
He hollered, "Get up!"

298
00:16:59,052 --> 00:17:02,159
When I started to get up,
he started punching me

299
00:17:02,228 --> 00:17:05,507
in the eyes with the end of his billy.

300
00:17:09,890 --> 00:17:13,170
MACK: N.A.A.C.P. officials,
they were moved by this,

301
00:17:13,239 --> 00:17:16,932
like everyone was moved
by just the tragedy of it.

302
00:17:17,001 --> 00:17:20,384
In addition, the N.A.A.C.P.
leadership was always

303
00:17:20,453 --> 00:17:23,249
on the lookout for cases of injustice

304
00:17:23,318 --> 00:17:27,598
that they could use
to really dramatize the nature

305
00:17:27,667 --> 00:17:29,772
of the Southern racial system...

306
00:17:29,841 --> 00:17:31,912
for African Americans around the country,

307
00:17:31,981 --> 00:17:35,295
to get them to support
the N.A.A.C.P.'s work,

308
00:17:35,364 --> 00:17:39,437
and for white people
to make them understand

309
00:17:39,506 --> 00:17:41,198
what's really going on.

310
00:17:41,267 --> 00:17:43,752
♪

311
00:17:43,821 --> 00:17:48,205
FREDERICKSON: Once Walter White
gets a hold of Isaac Woodard's story,

312
00:17:48,274 --> 00:17:49,620
he is on fire.

313
00:17:49,689 --> 00:17:52,830
♪

314
00:17:52,899 --> 00:17:56,247
He is looking for ways
to publicize this story

315
00:17:56,316 --> 00:18:00,355
and he's looking for
the biggest platform out there.

316
00:18:00,424 --> 00:18:02,081
♪

317
00:18:02,150 --> 00:18:04,255
WELLES: How do you
do, ladies and gentlemen?

318
00:18:04,324 --> 00:18:06,913
This is Orson Welles.

319
00:18:06,982 --> 00:18:09,985
NARRATOR: White and his
new press agent reached out

320
00:18:10,054 --> 00:18:12,850
to one of the nation's great dramatists,

321
00:18:12,919 --> 00:18:15,473
the boy wonder of stage and cinema,

322
00:18:15,542 --> 00:18:18,511
31-year-old Orson Welles.

323
00:18:18,580 --> 00:18:23,930
In the summer of 1946,
Welles was hosting a radio show

324
00:18:23,999 --> 00:18:26,519
that broadcast nationally every Sunday.

325
00:18:26,588 --> 00:18:29,384
GERGEL:
The N.A.A.C.P. goes to him

326
00:18:29,453 --> 00:18:32,939
and says, "We need your help
to share this story."

327
00:18:33,008 --> 00:18:35,942
♪

328
00:18:41,706 --> 00:18:44,813
The story fascinated him,

329
00:18:44,882 --> 00:18:46,332
particularly the whodunnit quality.

330
00:18:46,401 --> 00:18:49,266
No one knew who this police officer was.

331
00:18:49,335 --> 00:18:52,441
[radio hums while tuning]

332
00:18:52,510 --> 00:18:56,169
WELLES: Now it seems the
officer of the law who blinded

333
00:18:56,238 --> 00:18:58,930
the young Negro boy in the
affidavit has not been named.

334
00:18:58,999 --> 00:19:00,725
Till we know more about him, for just now,

335
00:19:00,794 --> 00:19:03,659
we'll call the policeman Officer X.

336
00:19:03,728 --> 00:19:06,904
Officer X, I'm talking to you.

337
00:19:06,973 --> 00:19:10,563
We invite you to luxuriate
in secrecy, it will be brief.

338
00:19:10,632 --> 00:19:14,498
You're going to be uncovered!
[radio hums]

339
00:19:14,567 --> 00:19:18,950
NARRATOR: Welles came back
to the Woodard story the next week,

340
00:19:19,019 --> 00:19:24,542
and the week after, drawing more
listeners each episode.

341
00:19:24,611 --> 00:19:26,337
But there were holes in the story.

342
00:19:26,406 --> 00:19:30,307
Three weeks into the radio broadcasts,

343
00:19:30,376 --> 00:19:33,344
there were still no real leads
about Woodard's assailant,

344
00:19:33,413 --> 00:19:35,208
or even about the town
where Woodard had been pulled

345
00:19:35,277 --> 00:19:37,314
from the bus.

346
00:19:37,383 --> 00:19:41,490
The N.A.A.C.P. legal team
was getting nervous.

347
00:19:41,559 --> 00:19:44,459
GERGEL: Marshall says,
"We gotta get this right."

348
00:19:44,528 --> 00:19:46,840
We've got our friends
out on a limb on this thing.

349
00:19:46,909 --> 00:19:51,500
♪

350
00:19:51,569 --> 00:19:55,642
Orson Welles hires
private investigators to go

351
00:19:55,711 --> 00:19:58,818
throughout the bus route to
figure out where this happened.

352
00:19:58,887 --> 00:20:03,547
And the N.A.A.C.P.'s
national office has its lawyers

353
00:20:03,616 --> 00:20:04,927
searching these communities

354
00:20:04,996 --> 00:20:07,344
asking does anyone know this story.

355
00:20:07,413 --> 00:20:10,381
♪

356
00:20:10,450 --> 00:20:14,765
Arriving in, unsolicited,
in the national office

357
00:20:14,834 --> 00:20:19,425
is a letter from a Black soldier who says,

358
00:20:19,494 --> 00:20:23,705
"I heard on the radio about the
blinding of Sergeant Woodard.

359
00:20:23,774 --> 00:20:24,878
"I was on the bus.

360
00:20:24,947 --> 00:20:27,156
It was Batesburg."

361
00:20:27,226 --> 00:20:30,712
[radio tuning hisses]

362
00:20:30,781 --> 00:20:33,922
WELLES: I have before me wires
and press releases to the effect

363
00:20:33,991 --> 00:20:37,546
that a policeman of Batesburg,

364
00:20:37,615 --> 00:20:42,793
a man by the name of Shull,
has admitted that he was

365
00:20:42,862 --> 00:20:46,969
the police officer
who blinded Isaac Woodard.

366
00:20:47,038 --> 00:20:51,595
Officer X, we know your name now.

367
00:20:51,664 --> 00:20:54,736
Now that we found you out,
we'll never lose you.

368
00:20:54,805 --> 00:20:56,807
You can't get rid of me.

369
00:20:56,876 --> 00:20:58,602
We have an appointment.

370
00:20:58,671 --> 00:21:00,742
[radio tuning hisses]

371
00:21:00,811 --> 00:21:02,847
♪

372
00:21:02,916 --> 00:21:06,126
NARRATOR: The Welles broadcast
had put the story in the headlines,

373
00:21:06,195 --> 00:21:09,682
and a whirlwind began to swirl
around Isaac Woodard.

374
00:21:09,751 --> 00:21:15,274
♪

375
00:21:15,343 --> 00:21:18,415
When word got out that the Army
had denied the young sergeant

376
00:21:18,484 --> 00:21:20,175
full disability benefits...

377
00:21:20,244 --> 00:21:22,453
on the grounds that he was
blinded a few hours

378
00:21:22,522 --> 00:21:25,249
after his discharge...

379
00:21:25,318 --> 00:21:28,010
luminaries from New York's
Black community organized

380
00:21:28,079 --> 00:21:29,667
a benefit concert on his behalf.

381
00:21:29,736 --> 00:21:36,329
[band playing]

382
00:21:36,398 --> 00:21:39,263
Headlined by some of the biggest
names in music,

383
00:21:39,332 --> 00:21:42,611
stars from Billie Holliday
to Woody Guthrie turned up

384
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:48,134
at Lewisohn Stadium in Harlem to
raise money for "the blind G.I."

385
00:21:48,203 --> 00:21:54,727
[jazz band playing, crowd cheering]

386
00:21:56,487 --> 00:21:59,594
Heavyweight champion Joe Louis,
hero of Black America,

387
00:21:59,663 --> 00:22:03,805
stepped forward to co-chair the event.

388
00:22:03,874 --> 00:22:07,118
YOUNG: Joe Louis sent a
limousine to our house in the Bronx.

389
00:22:07,187 --> 00:22:09,397
I was 11 years old.

390
00:22:09,466 --> 00:22:10,812
That excited me.

391
00:22:10,881 --> 00:22:12,434
[crowd cheering]

392
00:22:12,503 --> 00:22:15,437
NARRATOR: Seated beside his
mother, Isaac Woodard,

393
00:22:15,506 --> 00:22:18,751
a young man from tiny
Winnsboro, South Carolina,

394
00:22:18,820 --> 00:22:22,893
was awestruck to learn
that nearly 20,000 people

395
00:22:22,962 --> 00:22:25,965
had gathered in his honor.

396
00:22:26,034 --> 00:22:27,898
10,000 more were turned away.

397
00:22:27,967 --> 00:22:31,350
[woman singing, performance ending]

398
00:22:31,419 --> 00:22:35,940
[crowd cheers and applause]

399
00:22:36,009 --> 00:22:39,461
The crowd had been drawn
by the all-star performances,

400
00:22:39,530 --> 00:22:43,638
but it was Woodard himself who
turned out to be the headliner.

401
00:22:45,916 --> 00:22:49,298
One reporter noted that applause
lasted for five minutes

402
00:22:49,368 --> 00:22:52,267
after he took the stage.

403
00:22:52,336 --> 00:22:55,822
GERGEL: He spoke in a very
low voice and people had to go be

404
00:22:55,891 --> 00:22:58,066
completely silent to hear him,

405
00:22:58,135 --> 00:23:01,103
but it was a powerful account
of what happened.

406
00:23:01,172 --> 00:23:03,727
♪

407
00:23:03,796 --> 00:23:07,282
WOODARD [dramatized]: I spent three-and-a-half
years in service of my country

408
00:23:07,351 --> 00:23:10,527
and thought I would be treated
as a man when I returned

409
00:23:10,596 --> 00:23:12,632
to civilian life,

410
00:23:12,701 --> 00:23:15,980
but I was mistaken.

411
00:23:16,049 --> 00:23:19,328
If the loss of my sight
will make people in America

412
00:23:19,398 --> 00:23:21,986
get together to prevent
what happened to me

413
00:23:22,055 --> 00:23:26,750
from ever happening again
to any other person,

414
00:23:26,819 --> 00:23:29,960
I would be glad.

415
00:23:30,029 --> 00:23:34,585
[cheers and applause]

416
00:23:34,654 --> 00:23:36,484
♪

417
00:23:36,553 --> 00:23:41,109
NARRATOR: The benefit concert netted
more than $10,000 for Isaac Woodard...

418
00:23:41,178 --> 00:23:44,284
enough to buy a house, but little else.

419
00:23:45,734 --> 00:23:47,874
One N.A.A.C.P. staffer noted

420
00:23:47,943 --> 00:23:50,359
though Woodard was riding high now,

421
00:23:50,429 --> 00:23:55,537
"in ten years no one
will remember" his name.

422
00:23:55,606 --> 00:23:59,403
GERGEL: The N.A.A.C.P. basically
adopts a plan to make Isaac Woodard

423
00:23:59,472 --> 00:24:02,648
the centerpiece of a campaign
for the promotion

424
00:24:02,717 --> 00:24:05,409
of the civil rights
of all returning veterans.

425
00:24:05,478 --> 00:24:07,722
♪

426
00:24:07,791 --> 00:24:12,554
He goes on a multi-city
nationwide speaking tour

427
00:24:12,623 --> 00:24:16,869
that gathers huge crowds
all across the country.

428
00:24:16,938 --> 00:24:21,874
♪

429
00:24:25,360 --> 00:24:28,225
It's hard to imagine
how many other Black men

430
00:24:28,294 --> 00:24:33,541
would have been as well known
in America in 1946 and 1947

431
00:24:33,610 --> 00:24:35,059
than Isaac Woodard.

432
00:24:35,128 --> 00:24:38,304
♪

433
00:24:38,373 --> 00:24:40,824
MACK: So many victims of
Southern violence are not alive.

434
00:24:42,826 --> 00:24:46,795
Their bullet-ridden corpses
are in a grave somewhere,

435
00:24:46,864 --> 00:24:51,110
but he's alive to talk about his story.

436
00:24:51,179 --> 00:24:52,974
♪

437
00:24:53,043 --> 00:24:57,841
WILLIAMS: My dad told me he remembers
when the mailman would arrive daily,

438
00:24:57,910 --> 00:25:02,017
he would have a huge duffel bag
that he would carry

439
00:25:02,086 --> 00:25:04,399
and the letters would just
pour out onto the floor.

440
00:25:06,539 --> 00:25:12,683
MACK: How does Isaac Woodard
negotiate this new world that he's in?

441
00:25:12,752 --> 00:25:15,997
He's blinded, he's got to figure
out how to support himself

442
00:25:16,066 --> 00:25:19,828
and also being called upon to be a symbol,

443
00:25:19,897 --> 00:25:22,175
where he didn't want to be a symbol.

444
00:25:22,244 --> 00:25:25,558
He just was expecting to be
discharged from the Army

445
00:25:25,627 --> 00:25:26,973
and go back to his family.

446
00:25:27,042 --> 00:25:30,114
[radio static]

447
00:25:30,183 --> 00:25:32,392
WELLES: The blind soldier
fought for me in this war.

448
00:25:32,461 --> 00:25:36,017
The least I can do now is fight for him.

449
00:25:36,086 --> 00:25:39,020
I have eyes.
He hasn't.

450
00:25:39,089 --> 00:25:42,092
I was born a white man.

451
00:25:42,161 --> 00:25:45,613
And until a colored man
is a full citizen, like me,

452
00:25:45,682 --> 00:25:48,926
I haven't the leisure to enjoy
the freedom that colored man

453
00:25:48,995 --> 00:25:53,552
risked his life to maintain for me.

454
00:25:53,621 --> 00:25:58,971
I don't own what I have until
he owns an equal share of it.

455
00:26:02,181 --> 00:26:05,978
Until somebody beats me and blinds me,

456
00:26:06,047 --> 00:26:08,843
I am in his debt.

457
00:26:12,329 --> 00:26:17,058
GERGEL: The Welles broadcast
generated huge attention.

458
00:26:17,127 --> 00:26:21,476
The N.A.A.C.P. built on that
and civil rights groups

459
00:26:21,545 --> 00:26:25,445
around the country were writing
letters demanding

460
00:26:25,514 --> 00:26:29,104
for the prosecution of this police officer

461
00:26:29,173 --> 00:26:31,348
for the beating and blinding
of Sergeant Woodard.

462
00:26:31,417 --> 00:26:34,178
♪

463
00:26:34,247 --> 00:26:38,389
FREDERICKSON: In terms of
getting justice for Isaac Woodard,

464
00:26:38,458 --> 00:26:41,530
it's going to be extremely
difficult, if not impossible.

465
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:46,121
GERGEL: There are no
prosecutions of white police officers

466
00:26:46,190 --> 00:26:49,884
by the federal government
for excessive force.

467
00:26:49,953 --> 00:26:53,957
They're getting 1,000 to 2,000
complaints a year,

468
00:26:54,026 --> 00:26:57,512
and they're essentially not doing much.

469
00:26:59,618 --> 00:27:02,966
MACK: Everybody understood
that Southern state governments

470
00:27:03,035 --> 00:27:05,313
did not protect against violence.

471
00:27:05,382 --> 00:27:10,870
In fact, local officials were
often the purveyors of violence.

472
00:27:10,939 --> 00:27:13,632
So, there'd been calls and calls and calls

473
00:27:13,701 --> 00:27:17,152
on the federal government
to take some kind of action.

474
00:27:17,221 --> 00:27:20,155
But the Department of Justice
had largely been

475
00:27:20,224 --> 00:27:21,985
unwilling to step up to that task.

476
00:27:22,054 --> 00:27:26,127
GERGEL: The Justice Department
had endless explanations

477
00:27:26,196 --> 00:27:29,924
about why it simply
wasn't possible to do this.

478
00:27:29,993 --> 00:27:34,687
You had all white juries,
all white grand juries.

479
00:27:34,756 --> 00:27:35,964
Why are they all white?

480
00:27:36,033 --> 00:27:39,347
Because African Americans
are disenfranchised.

481
00:27:39,416 --> 00:27:42,108
And getting a conviction
against a white police officer

482
00:27:42,177 --> 00:27:43,558
is not realistic.

483
00:27:43,627 --> 00:27:47,113
It's not going to happen in the South.

484
00:27:47,182 --> 00:27:49,529
IFILL: There's this part of it
that is about treating the South

485
00:27:49,598 --> 00:27:53,223
as though it is some peculiar,
unique, hothouse flower

486
00:27:53,292 --> 00:27:55,087
that has to be handled carefully.

487
00:27:55,156 --> 00:27:56,433
[humorless chuckle]

488
00:27:56,502 --> 00:27:59,056
And that, that, that you kind of
didn't try to interfere

489
00:27:59,125 --> 00:28:01,990
with something that was regarded
as kind of cultural.

490
00:28:02,059 --> 00:28:06,892
And this really comes out of
the idea that Southern mores

491
00:28:06,961 --> 00:28:09,964
were sufficiently different,
that it would do you no good

492
00:28:10,033 --> 00:28:12,863
to try to interfere with them.

493
00:28:12,932 --> 00:28:16,177
FREDERICKSON:
What the N.A.A.C.P. can do

494
00:28:16,246 --> 00:28:19,870
is try to channel righteous outrage,

495
00:28:19,939 --> 00:28:26,739
try to shine a light on this
incredibly heinous incident

496
00:28:26,808 --> 00:28:32,296
and perhaps go above the head
of local law enforcement

497
00:28:32,365 --> 00:28:37,474
to Washington to prick the
conscience of the president.

498
00:28:37,543 --> 00:28:40,235
And that, perhaps, through
the powers of the presidency,

499
00:28:40,304 --> 00:28:45,206
some change can come to the South.

500
00:28:45,275 --> 00:28:47,795
MACK: There'd been a
long tradition of Black leaders

501
00:28:47,864 --> 00:28:49,866
meeting with presidents
of the United States.

502
00:28:49,935 --> 00:28:54,456
But there's a lot of suspicion of Truman.

503
00:28:54,525 --> 00:28:56,389
You know, how liberal is he?

504
00:28:56,458 --> 00:28:59,289
How sympathetic to the
N.A.A.C.P. is he going to be?

505
00:28:59,358 --> 00:29:03,603
Nothing in Truman's background
would lead one to believe

506
00:29:03,672 --> 00:29:07,918
that he would act differently
than the presidents before him.

507
00:29:07,987 --> 00:29:13,234
♪

508
00:29:13,303 --> 00:29:15,892
NARRATOR: Civil rights leaders had
good reason to regard Harry Truman

509
00:29:15,961 --> 00:29:19,654
as an unlikely champion
of Black Americans.

510
00:29:19,723 --> 00:29:23,623
He had grown up in Independence, Missouri,

511
00:29:23,692 --> 00:29:27,627
a town that still celebrated
its Confederate heritage.

512
00:29:29,837 --> 00:29:31,424
Truman's grandparents on both sides

513
00:29:31,493 --> 00:29:34,945
were rebel partisans and slaveowners.

514
00:29:35,014 --> 00:29:38,190
GERGEL: Harry Truman's
mother thought John Wilkes Booth

515
00:29:38,259 --> 00:29:39,950
was an American hero.

516
00:29:40,019 --> 00:29:42,711
She refused to sleep
in the Lincoln bedroom

517
00:29:42,781 --> 00:29:44,472
in the White House.

518
00:29:44,541 --> 00:29:49,891
FREDERICKSON: He grew up in a
household where belief in white supremacy

519
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,307
was simply in the air.

520
00:29:52,376 --> 00:29:56,242
People used racial epithets very casually

521
00:29:56,311 --> 00:29:59,936
and he continued to use them
well into his adult life.

522
00:30:03,008 --> 00:30:05,734
NARRATOR: Despite his background,
President Truman was willing

523
00:30:05,804 --> 00:30:08,703
to listen to the concerns
of civil rights advocates.

524
00:30:10,912 --> 00:30:13,121
On September 19, 1946,

525
00:30:13,190 --> 00:30:16,055
Truman invited Walter White
and a delegation

526
00:30:16,124 --> 00:30:17,677
of religious and labor leaders

527
00:30:17,746 --> 00:30:20,059
for a meeting in the Oval Office.

528
00:30:20,128 --> 00:30:23,373
♪

529
00:30:23,442 --> 00:30:27,170
GERGEL: The meeting begins
and the civil rights leaders

530
00:30:27,239 --> 00:30:31,208
are asking the president
to pass legislation

531
00:30:31,277 --> 00:30:33,762
prohibiting lynching in America.

532
00:30:33,832 --> 00:30:35,972
Harry Truman says to the leaders,

533
00:30:36,041 --> 00:30:38,767
"I understand your concerns,

534
00:30:38,837 --> 00:30:44,118
but there's not the will in this
country for new legislation."

535
00:30:44,187 --> 00:30:47,604
Walter White is listening
to this discussion.

536
00:30:47,673 --> 00:30:53,161
And he realizes that
Harry Truman doesn't get it.

537
00:30:53,230 --> 00:30:56,509
He stops the discussion
and says, "Mr. President,

538
00:30:56,578 --> 00:31:00,341
I need to tell you the story of
the blinding of Isaac Woodard."

539
00:31:00,410 --> 00:31:05,104
♪

540
00:31:05,173 --> 00:31:08,970
MACK: People like Harry
Truman need to be woken up.

541
00:31:09,039 --> 00:31:11,697
That was part of
the N.A.A.C.P.'s job,

542
00:31:11,766 --> 00:31:13,492
was to wake people up

543
00:31:13,561 --> 00:31:16,184
to injustices they tolerated,

544
00:31:16,253 --> 00:31:17,461
that they ignored,

545
00:31:17,530 --> 00:31:20,637
that they were complicit in,
and to make them see it.

546
00:31:25,435 --> 00:31:27,609
JAMES: Harry Truman, decades
earlier, after World War I had been

547
00:31:27,678 --> 00:31:29,301
a returning veteran.

548
00:31:29,370 --> 00:31:32,235
A white returning veteran, to be sure,

549
00:31:32,304 --> 00:31:34,409
but the idea that a war veteran

550
00:31:34,478 --> 00:31:36,929
wearing his uniform
could be pulled off a bus

551
00:31:36,998 --> 00:31:41,761
and attacked and beaten
by law enforcement officers,

552
00:31:41,830 --> 00:31:44,937
surprised Truman and enraged him.

553
00:31:45,006 --> 00:31:50,598
GERGEL: Truman became
red-faced, extremely agitated,

554
00:31:50,667 --> 00:31:55,672
jaw clenched, and then turns
to his staff and says,

555
00:31:55,741 --> 00:31:58,917
"My God, I didn't know
it was as terrible as this.

556
00:31:58,986 --> 00:32:01,057
We have got to do something."

557
00:32:01,126 --> 00:32:05,889
♪

558
00:32:05,958 --> 00:32:07,995
NARRATOR: The next day,
the president fired off a letter

559
00:32:08,064 --> 00:32:11,274
to his attorney general,
referencing Isaac Woodard

560
00:32:11,343 --> 00:32:13,966
and insisting it would
"require the inauguration

561
00:32:14,035 --> 00:32:19,834
of some sort of policy
to prevent such happenings."

562
00:32:19,903 --> 00:32:23,907
Five days later, at Truman's insistence,

563
00:32:23,976 --> 00:32:26,427
the attorney general
ordered federal prosecutors

564
00:32:26,496 --> 00:32:29,844
in South Carolina to initiate
criminal proceedings

565
00:32:29,913 --> 00:32:34,090
against Police Chief Lynwood Shull.

566
00:32:34,159 --> 00:32:36,368
FREDERICKSON:
This is unprecedented

567
00:32:36,437 --> 00:32:39,958
for the president of the United States

568
00:32:40,027 --> 00:32:44,238
to involve himself
in what white Southerners see

569
00:32:44,307 --> 00:32:46,723
as a local matter.

570
00:32:50,002 --> 00:32:52,142
IFILL:
This was a way of life for them.

571
00:32:52,211 --> 00:32:56,836
They thought it was perfectly
normal for a Southern sheriff

572
00:32:56,905 --> 00:32:59,908
to get away with blinding a Black man.

573
00:33:02,635 --> 00:33:07,088
And so the mere fact of the
federal government's attention,

574
00:33:07,157 --> 00:33:10,919
and engagement demonstrated that
someone was watching.

575
00:33:10,989 --> 00:33:14,751
It demonstrated that perhaps
the South would not be treated

576
00:33:14,820 --> 00:33:18,651
as this peculiar region
that we won't touch.

577
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,516
It was very, very powerful.

578
00:33:21,585 --> 00:33:26,038
NARRATOR: President Truman's
resolve to hold Chief Shull accountable

579
00:33:26,107 --> 00:33:29,490
was met with predictable resistance,

580
00:33:29,559 --> 00:33:34,805
even by the U.S. attorney
in charge of the case.

581
00:33:34,874 --> 00:33:40,915
GERGEL: It is greeted in South
Carolina with shock, anger, revulsion,

582
00:33:40,984 --> 00:33:44,091
in the white political leadership.

583
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:45,816
The U.S. attorney
for South Carolina

584
00:33:45,885 --> 00:33:49,199
wanted no part of this case.

585
00:33:49,268 --> 00:33:51,167
The Justice Department
makes it very clear,

586
00:33:51,236 --> 00:33:52,858
this is not a matter of debate,

587
00:33:52,927 --> 00:33:53,997
this is an order.

588
00:33:54,066 --> 00:33:55,274
You are to bring this case.

589
00:33:55,343 --> 00:33:58,622
[crowd chattering]

590
00:34:05,319 --> 00:34:09,564
NARRATOR: When Isaac Woodard
returned to South Carolina for the trial,

591
00:34:09,633 --> 00:34:13,051
the N.A.A.C.P. dispatched
Franklin Williams,

592
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:17,607
one of their finest attorneys,
to accompany him.

593
00:34:17,676 --> 00:34:20,610
MACK: The N.A.A.C.P.
sends Franklin Williams to travel

594
00:34:20,679 --> 00:34:23,061
with Isaac Woodard for several reasons:

595
00:34:23,130 --> 00:34:27,134
he's blind, he needed somebody
to navigate around,

596
00:34:27,203 --> 00:34:28,583
and also they fundamentally don't trust

597
00:34:28,652 --> 00:34:30,447
the Department of Justice.

598
00:34:30,516 --> 00:34:32,932
♪

599
00:34:33,001 --> 00:34:35,280
GILBERT KING: Franklin
Williams recognizes that the object

600
00:34:35,349 --> 00:34:38,731
of this entire thing was to make
it almost like a culture war.

601
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,837
It was going to be a Southern way of life

602
00:34:40,906 --> 00:34:45,704
versus these Northern activists
and intruders trying to dictate

603
00:34:45,773 --> 00:34:47,361
their way of life on the South.

604
00:34:47,430 --> 00:34:49,673
♪

605
00:34:49,742 --> 00:34:52,297
NARRATOR: Williams offered
plenty of assistance to the prosecution

606
00:34:52,366 --> 00:34:54,954
at their first and only meeting,

607
00:34:55,023 --> 00:34:58,199
less than 24 hours
before the start of the trial.

608
00:34:58,268 --> 00:35:00,374
He had a list of possible witnesses,

609
00:35:00,443 --> 00:35:03,377
including bus passengers
who had seen Lynnwood Shull's

610
00:35:03,446 --> 00:35:07,381
first unprovoked blows to Woodard's head.

611
00:35:08,761 --> 00:35:10,832
He also had at the ready a report

612
00:35:10,901 --> 00:35:14,388
by N.A.A.C.P. investigators
detailing Shull's history

613
00:35:14,457 --> 00:35:19,634
of violence against
the Black citizens in Batesburg.

614
00:35:19,703 --> 00:35:22,085
But the prosecution waved him off.

615
00:35:24,639 --> 00:35:25,916
[gavel pounds]

616
00:35:25,985 --> 00:35:30,266
♪

617
00:35:30,335 --> 00:35:33,234
On the morning of November 5, 1946,

618
00:35:33,303 --> 00:35:37,204
the courtroom in Columbia
was tense and segregated.

619
00:35:37,273 --> 00:35:38,929
[gavel pounds]

620
00:35:38,998 --> 00:35:42,830
Shull's supporters occupied
one section of the gallery,

621
00:35:42,899 --> 00:35:44,694
determined to witness the repudiation

622
00:35:44,763 --> 00:35:47,455
of a federal government gone too far.

623
00:35:47,524 --> 00:35:48,939
[gavel pounds]

624
00:35:49,008 --> 00:35:51,218
A delegation of anxious
Black college students

625
00:35:51,287 --> 00:35:52,529
took up the other half,

626
00:35:52,598 --> 00:35:55,222
hoping to catch the first glimmers

627
00:35:55,291 --> 00:35:57,534
of a sea change in Southern justice.

628
00:36:02,470 --> 00:36:05,956
A hush fell over the room
as Judge J. Waties Waring

629
00:36:06,025 --> 00:36:08,131
called the trial to order.

630
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,098
[gavel pounds]

631
00:36:10,168 --> 00:36:14,931
GERGEL: J. Waties Waring was
an eighth-generation Charlestonian.

632
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:19,107
His father was a Confederate veteran,

633
00:36:19,177 --> 00:36:23,905
multiple generations
of his family were slaveholders.

634
00:36:23,974 --> 00:36:27,150
He was no advocate for civil rights.

635
00:36:27,219 --> 00:36:30,636
And he, frankly, early on
when he got assigned this case,

636
00:36:30,705 --> 00:36:33,398
he had a lot of doubts
about the appropriateness

637
00:36:33,467 --> 00:36:36,884
of the federal government
to prosecute a police officer.

638
00:36:39,645 --> 00:36:43,925
NARRATOR: Judge Waring, like most
in South Carolina's political class,

639
00:36:43,994 --> 00:36:45,996
harbored plenty of suspicions

640
00:36:46,065 --> 00:36:48,896
about federal intervention in this case.

641
00:36:48,965 --> 00:36:51,795
Chiefly, that President Truman
was motivated more

642
00:36:51,864 --> 00:36:56,524
by the coming midterms
than a concern for justice.

643
00:36:56,593 --> 00:36:59,596
But Waring's skepticism began unraveling

644
00:36:59,665 --> 00:37:02,081
as soon as Isaac Woodard rose to testify.

645
00:37:04,739 --> 00:37:06,707
GERGEL:
He's wearing a brown suit.

646
00:37:06,776 --> 00:37:08,467
He has sunglasses.

647
00:37:08,536 --> 00:37:10,228
He has to be guided to the witness chair

648
00:37:10,297 --> 00:37:12,678
by court personnel.

649
00:37:12,747 --> 00:37:15,474
And he then begins
on the direct examination

650
00:37:15,543 --> 00:37:19,720
to describe what happened,

651
00:37:19,789 --> 00:37:24,587
and the story is just completely credible.

652
00:37:24,656 --> 00:37:28,073
Waring knows it's true.

653
00:37:28,142 --> 00:37:33,872
FREDERICKSON: Waring is face-to-face
with this man who bears on his body

654
00:37:33,941 --> 00:37:37,427
the scars of Southern racism.

655
00:37:37,496 --> 00:37:39,187
He cannot look away from this

656
00:37:39,257 --> 00:37:44,227
walking, talking tragedy of injustice.

657
00:37:46,125 --> 00:37:49,439
GERGEL: The crux of the case is
whether excessive and unnecessary force

658
00:37:49,508 --> 00:37:54,755
was used in regard to Isaac Woodard.

659
00:37:54,824 --> 00:37:56,619
The police chief claimed

660
00:37:56,688 --> 00:38:01,106
"I only hit him once, I don't
know how he got blinded."

661
00:38:01,175 --> 00:38:05,490
But how do you crush the globes
of both eyes with one strike?

662
00:38:05,559 --> 00:38:09,770
♪

663
00:38:09,839 --> 00:38:11,910
NARRATOR: The government
finished presenting its case

664
00:38:11,979 --> 00:38:16,052
against Shull after just an hour
and 25 minutes.

665
00:38:16,121 --> 00:38:19,573
The prosecutors had not called
witnesses who had seen

666
00:38:19,642 --> 00:38:22,852
the attack unfold,
or presented any evidence

667
00:38:22,921 --> 00:38:25,337
about Chief Shull's pattern
of violence against

668
00:38:25,406 --> 00:38:29,307
the Black citizens of Batesburg.

669
00:38:29,376 --> 00:38:31,550
As the prosecution rested,

670
00:38:31,619 --> 00:38:34,208
Franklin Williams sat in the courtroom,

671
00:38:34,277 --> 00:38:37,349
furiously scrawling notes.

672
00:38:37,418 --> 00:38:40,904
[pen scratching paper]

673
00:38:40,973 --> 00:38:42,837
MACK: It was going
to be a difficult case to win,

674
00:38:42,906 --> 00:38:44,770
but even given that,

675
00:38:44,839 --> 00:38:49,982
the Department of Justice acted
with incompetence.

676
00:38:50,051 --> 00:38:54,435
They failed to call key witnesses.

677
00:38:54,504 --> 00:38:59,267
They let the defense lawyers
examine the jury pool

678
00:38:59,337 --> 00:39:01,166
and asked them whether
they'd been members...

679
00:39:01,235 --> 00:39:02,650
all these white people...

680
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,377
asked them whether they'd been
members of the N.A.A.C.P.

681
00:39:05,446 --> 00:39:07,345
I mean they never asked them
whether they'd been members

682
00:39:07,414 --> 00:39:08,415
of the Ku Klux Klan.

683
00:39:10,969 --> 00:39:14,662
They were just sort of
incompetent from top to bottom.

684
00:39:14,731 --> 00:39:16,388
There's a reason for that.

685
00:39:16,457 --> 00:39:18,459
This is not a case
that the Justice Department

686
00:39:18,528 --> 00:39:19,874
wanted to bring.

687
00:39:19,943 --> 00:39:23,533
And at trial, they showed that
their heart was not in it.

688
00:39:23,602 --> 00:39:26,674
GERGEL: Judge Waring was
horrified that he was made part

689
00:39:26,743 --> 00:39:28,331
of this travesty.

690
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,059
He sends the jury out to deliberate,

691
00:39:32,128 --> 00:39:34,164
and he tells his assistant
United States marshal,

692
00:39:34,233 --> 00:39:36,339
"I'll be back in a few minutes.

693
00:39:36,408 --> 00:39:41,896
And the bewildered marshal says,
"Your Honor, you can't leave.

694
00:39:41,965 --> 00:39:45,590
This jury is going to be back
in five minutes."

695
00:39:45,659 --> 00:39:47,212
He says, "They're not
coming back in five minutes

696
00:39:47,281 --> 00:39:49,352
because I won't be here."

697
00:39:49,421 --> 00:39:51,975
♪

698
00:39:52,044 --> 00:39:57,084
He was not going to allow a jury
to do a five-minute verdict,

699
00:39:57,153 --> 00:40:00,052
which he thought would just be
the capstone

700
00:40:00,121 --> 00:40:03,228
of a great injustice.

701
00:40:03,297 --> 00:40:04,712
That part he controlled,

702
00:40:04,781 --> 00:40:07,715
and he made them sit in that
room and stew in their juices,

703
00:40:07,784 --> 00:40:09,303
until he got back.

704
00:40:09,372 --> 00:40:12,064
♪

705
00:40:12,133 --> 00:40:14,791
Judge Waring walks down Main
Street to the state capitol,

706
00:40:14,860 --> 00:40:17,932
and when he comes back 25 minutes later,

707
00:40:18,001 --> 00:40:19,555
they're banging on that door.

708
00:40:19,624 --> 00:40:21,557
[chuckling]: They've been
banging on it for 20 minutes

709
00:40:21,626 --> 00:40:24,111
and they come out and they announce

710
00:40:24,180 --> 00:40:26,354
the acquittal of Lynwood Shull.

711
00:40:26,424 --> 00:40:33,361
♪

712
00:40:33,431 --> 00:40:35,812
NARRATOR: An exhausted Isaac
Woodard had already retreated

713
00:40:35,881 --> 00:40:40,058
back to his hotel
when he received the news.

714
00:40:40,127 --> 00:40:44,027
He wept, then collected himself,

715
00:40:44,096 --> 00:40:47,306
and stepped outside to face reporters.

716
00:40:48,791 --> 00:40:52,622
"I'm not mad at anybody," he told them.

717
00:40:52,691 --> 00:40:54,382
"I just feel bad.

718
00:40:54,452 --> 00:40:57,040
"That's all.

719
00:40:57,109 --> 00:40:59,180
I just feel bad."

720
00:41:04,945 --> 00:41:08,155
♪

721
00:41:09,984 --> 00:41:12,849
Inside the courthouse,
Judge Waring hastily packed up

722
00:41:12,918 --> 00:41:16,474
his briefcase and then hurried
to meet his wife, Elizabeth,

723
00:41:16,543 --> 00:41:19,787
whom he found badly shaken.

724
00:41:19,856 --> 00:41:22,859
GERGEL:
She had attended the trial.

725
00:41:22,928 --> 00:41:25,413
And she found

726
00:41:25,483 --> 00:41:30,936
the facts of the case
astonishing, cruel, vicious.

727
00:41:31,005 --> 00:41:34,768
When the jury came back
and acquitted Shull,

728
00:41:34,837 --> 00:41:36,424
no one noticed that she slipped

729
00:41:36,494 --> 00:41:39,462
out of the back of the courtroom in tears.

730
00:41:41,982 --> 00:41:48,160
BELINDA GERGEL: She was profoundly
moved by the testimony of Isaac Woodard,

731
00:41:48,229 --> 00:41:53,269
about what had happened to him
at the hands of Chief Shull.

732
00:41:53,338 --> 00:41:57,653
She said she had never seen,
never appreciated,

733
00:41:57,722 --> 00:42:02,761
never understood that these
sorts of things could happen.

734
00:42:02,830 --> 00:42:07,663
♪

735
00:42:07,732 --> 00:42:12,460
NARRATOR: Elizabeth Avery Waring
was from a well-to-do family in Michigan

736
00:42:12,530 --> 00:42:15,463
and had only come South late in life.

737
00:42:17,431 --> 00:42:19,433
Like Waties, she had never paid
much attention

738
00:42:19,502 --> 00:42:24,334
to the racial caste system
in and around Charleston.

739
00:42:24,403 --> 00:42:28,028
♪

740
00:42:28,097 --> 00:42:30,340
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Charleston, a gracious old city,

741
00:42:30,409 --> 00:42:32,826
where memories and traditions
live and thrive

742
00:42:32,895 --> 00:42:34,690
in a congenial air.

743
00:42:34,759 --> 00:42:37,037
[bell tolling]

744
00:42:37,106 --> 00:42:40,385
Everywhere is an old time,
almost an old world,

745
00:42:40,454 --> 00:42:42,076
charm and quaintness.

746
00:42:42,145 --> 00:42:45,528
♪

747
00:42:45,597 --> 00:42:48,255
[shouting indistinctly]

748
00:42:48,324 --> 00:42:50,844
And everywhere, of course, the Negroes.

749
00:42:52,500 --> 00:42:54,606
The real Negro quarters
in Charleston may not boast

750
00:42:54,675 --> 00:42:57,678
classic colonial architecture
in all its flower,

751
00:42:57,747 --> 00:42:59,646
but it has a quaintness all its own.

752
00:43:02,545 --> 00:43:05,065
MACK: The Southern system
of segregation wasn't just

753
00:43:05,134 --> 00:43:06,756
some benign system that

754
00:43:06,825 --> 00:43:11,381
whites and Blacks acceded to
and everybody was happy.

755
00:43:11,450 --> 00:43:16,697
[indistinct chattering]

756
00:43:16,766 --> 00:43:18,492
It was a violent system.

757
00:43:20,977 --> 00:43:23,359
It was based on violence.

758
00:43:23,428 --> 00:43:24,671
If you got out of line,

759
00:43:24,740 --> 00:43:26,845
there was violent repression,

760
00:43:26,914 --> 00:43:30,124
and Woodard exemplified that.

761
00:43:30,193 --> 00:43:31,436
You know, for someone like Waring,

762
00:43:31,505 --> 00:43:34,232
he'd spent his whole life ignoring that.

763
00:43:34,301 --> 00:43:39,582
NARRATOR: "I couldn't take it,
at first," Waring would later admit.

764
00:43:39,651 --> 00:43:42,378
"I used to say it couldn't be true.

765
00:43:42,447 --> 00:43:46,451
"You grow up in it
and the moss gets in your eyes.

766
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:51,387
"You learn to rationalize away
the evil and filth

767
00:43:51,456 --> 00:43:55,909
and you see magnolias instead."

768
00:43:55,978 --> 00:43:58,739
IFILL: There is a
willful blindness, frankly,

769
00:43:58,808 --> 00:44:02,812
among most white people
about the truth of racism

770
00:44:02,881 --> 00:44:04,469
and white supremacy in this country.

771
00:44:04,538 --> 00:44:08,335
♪

772
00:44:08,404 --> 00:44:10,268
There is some ignorance because,
of course,

773
00:44:10,337 --> 00:44:12,615
we live very segregated lives,

774
00:44:12,684 --> 00:44:16,792
but it's right to say how could
he possibly not have known?

775
00:44:16,861 --> 00:44:19,380
He could not have known because

776
00:44:19,449 --> 00:44:24,420
to be a comfortable middle-class
white person in this country

777
00:44:24,489 --> 00:44:28,010
generally involves
refusing to see what is hiding

778
00:44:28,079 --> 00:44:30,115
in plain sight.

779
00:44:30,184 --> 00:44:32,324
♪

780
00:44:32,393 --> 00:44:37,122
RICHARD GERGEL: The trial shattered
their illusion about the benign nature

781
00:44:37,191 --> 00:44:39,331
of Southern life.

782
00:44:41,333 --> 00:44:44,992
And, once shattered, where do they go?

783
00:44:45,061 --> 00:44:51,171
There was just no tolerance
in Southern society of that day,

784
00:44:51,240 --> 00:44:54,795
to any honest discussion about race.

785
00:44:54,864 --> 00:44:59,662
Any questioning of Jim Crow was
viewed by the segregationists

786
00:44:59,731 --> 00:45:03,459
as an existential threat.

787
00:45:03,528 --> 00:45:05,944
BELINDA GERGEL:
There was no course on this.

788
00:45:06,013 --> 00:45:09,292
They certainly didn't know of
anyone in Charleston

789
00:45:09,361 --> 00:45:12,330
that could help them better understand,

790
00:45:12,399 --> 00:45:17,507
so the two of them begin a series of study

791
00:45:17,576 --> 00:45:21,270
on race relations in the South.

792
00:45:21,339 --> 00:45:23,272
IFILL: They take in books
every night, they read them,

793
00:45:23,341 --> 00:45:26,240
and then they have sessions
after dinner where they ask

794
00:45:26,309 --> 00:45:28,898
each other questions, and they basically

795
00:45:28,967 --> 00:45:31,901
create their own personal seminar to try

796
00:45:31,970 --> 00:45:33,869
to understand racism in America.

797
00:45:33,938 --> 00:45:38,908
♪

798
00:45:38,977 --> 00:45:41,531
NARRATOR: The Warings started
with two groundbreaking new works

799
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,949
that examined the origins and
the impact of white supremacy

800
00:45:45,018 --> 00:45:49,608
in the South: W.J. Cash's book,
"The Mind of the South,"

801
00:45:49,677 --> 00:45:53,267
and Gunnar Myrdal's
"An American Dilemma."

802
00:45:53,336 --> 00:45:55,580
Both books destroyed the comforting story

803
00:45:55,649 --> 00:45:57,996
white Southerners
liked to tell themselves:

804
00:45:58,065 --> 00:46:01,310
that slavery and Jim Crow had always been

805
00:46:01,379 --> 00:46:03,105
paternal institutions

806
00:46:03,174 --> 00:46:06,971
and that the "Negro" had long
lived under the protections

807
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:08,800
of a benevolent master race.

808
00:46:08,869 --> 00:46:13,840
♪

809
00:46:13,909 --> 00:46:16,981
Both made plain that white
moderates, like Waring himself,

810
00:46:17,050 --> 00:46:20,432
were complicit in this racist,
violent system.

811
00:46:20,501 --> 00:46:24,333
RICHARD GERGEL: These are important
books, they're complicated books,

812
00:46:24,402 --> 00:46:26,714
they're challenging books.

813
00:46:26,784 --> 00:46:32,099
Judge Waring described them
as tough medicine for him.

814
00:46:32,168 --> 00:46:35,758
BELINDA GERGEL: They rode
through different neighborhoods

815
00:46:35,827 --> 00:46:38,934
and began to see the different ways

816
00:46:39,003 --> 00:46:42,316
that white Charlestonians
and Black Charlestonians

817
00:46:42,385 --> 00:46:45,872
experienced life in the city.

818
00:46:45,941 --> 00:46:48,840
[chair creaking]

819
00:46:50,359 --> 00:46:53,258
As they began to read,

820
00:46:53,327 --> 00:46:55,916
and understand, and question

821
00:46:55,985 --> 00:46:59,678
all that they've thought about
race in the past,

822
00:46:59,747 --> 00:47:04,407
it becomes clear to both of them
that the road ahead

823
00:47:04,476 --> 00:47:07,686
is going to be a rocky road,

824
00:47:07,755 --> 00:47:10,758
but that this just may be the road

825
00:47:10,828 --> 00:47:14,486
that they are uniquely prepared to follow.

826
00:47:14,555 --> 00:47:18,628
♪

827
00:47:18,697 --> 00:47:21,977
NARRATOR: Looking askance at Charleston
society wasn't such a great leap

828
00:47:22,046 --> 00:47:23,668
for either of the Warings,

829
00:47:23,737 --> 00:47:26,084
who had been increasingly
feeling like outsiders

830
00:47:26,153 --> 00:47:28,293
in their own hometown.

831
00:47:30,882 --> 00:47:33,851
Just the previous year,
Judge Waring had scandalized

832
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,405
his friends and neighbors
by abruptly announcing

833
00:47:36,474 --> 00:47:39,339
to his first wife, Annie,
that he'd fallen in love

834
00:47:39,408 --> 00:47:42,307
with their bridge partner, Elizabeth.

835
00:47:42,376 --> 00:47:44,309
♪

836
00:47:44,378 --> 00:47:47,934
Divorce was not only
frowned upon in South Carolina;

837
00:47:48,003 --> 00:47:50,522
it was illegal.

838
00:47:50,591 --> 00:47:53,422
But Waring devised a plan
to send Annie to Florida,

839
00:47:53,491 --> 00:47:57,702
where she could legally
petition for divorce.

840
00:47:57,771 --> 00:48:00,947
A week after the dissolution
of his marriage to Annie,

841
00:48:01,016 --> 00:48:04,847
Waties and Elizabeth were wed.

842
00:48:06,297 --> 00:48:07,436
RICHARD GERGEL:
Their friends in Charleston...

843
00:48:07,505 --> 00:48:08,886
we're talking about
a couple hundred people,

844
00:48:08,955 --> 00:48:10,991
the sort of social set in Charleston...

845
00:48:11,060 --> 00:48:17,204
they blame Elizabeth
for the breakup of the marriage.

846
00:48:17,273 --> 00:48:21,657
NARRATOR: Elizabeth, a
Northerner now on her third marriage,

847
00:48:21,726 --> 00:48:25,385
was an easy target
for Charleston's society dames,

848
00:48:25,454 --> 00:48:28,664
who branded her a "floozie"
and told their children,

849
00:48:28,733 --> 00:48:32,806
"You may be polite if the new
Mrs. Waring speaks to you,

850
00:48:32,875 --> 00:48:35,188
but never address her."

851
00:48:35,257 --> 00:48:38,674
The judge noted that even
his oldest friends

852
00:48:38,743 --> 00:48:41,746
crossed the street to avoid him.

853
00:48:41,815 --> 00:48:44,887
RICHARD GERGEL: They clearly
were surprised by their treatment

854
00:48:44,956 --> 00:48:47,027
because they both had been
very engaged in the social life

855
00:48:47,096 --> 00:48:49,857
in Charleston.

856
00:48:49,927 --> 00:48:53,620
And having been read out of
Charleston's high society,

857
00:48:53,689 --> 00:48:56,519
he was prepared to look
more critically at the world

858
00:48:56,588 --> 00:49:00,178
in which he had previously lived
and accepted unquestionably.

859
00:49:00,247 --> 00:49:03,837
[birds chirping]

860
00:49:07,496 --> 00:49:10,671
[flags rustling in the wind]

861
00:49:10,740 --> 00:49:12,950
NARRATOR:
By the end of 1946,

862
00:49:13,019 --> 00:49:16,781
a racial reckoning in the
United States seemed inevitable.

863
00:49:16,850 --> 00:49:21,096
Like the Warings,
President Harry Truman felt

864
00:49:21,165 --> 00:49:24,306
called to respond to the
blinding of Isaac Woodard

865
00:49:24,375 --> 00:49:27,343
and the mockery it made of the principles

866
00:49:27,412 --> 00:49:31,554
America had just defended
in a long and brutal war.

867
00:49:31,623 --> 00:49:35,593
But political forces had left
Truman with limited power

868
00:49:35,662 --> 00:49:39,045
to take action against white supremacy.

869
00:49:39,114 --> 00:49:43,394
♪

870
00:49:43,463 --> 00:49:46,500
On the same day Woodard's
assailant walked free,

871
00:49:46,569 --> 00:49:48,916
November 5, 1946,

872
00:49:48,986 --> 00:49:51,402
the president absorbed
a stunning repudiation

873
00:49:51,471 --> 00:49:52,955
at the polls.

874
00:49:53,024 --> 00:49:56,752
Democrats lost both the House
and the Senate

875
00:49:56,821 --> 00:49:59,962
for the first time in a generation.

876
00:50:00,031 --> 00:50:04,656
Forcing the question of
civil rights, Truman understood,

877
00:50:04,725 --> 00:50:08,660
was likely to weaken the party further.

878
00:50:08,729 --> 00:50:12,250
FREDERICKSON: Harry Truman
has to deal with political realities,

879
00:50:12,319 --> 00:50:14,770
and the realities are
that the Democratic Party

880
00:50:14,839 --> 00:50:18,946
is an unwieldy coalition

881
00:50:19,016 --> 00:50:21,708
including white Southerners,
who are staunchly segregationist

882
00:50:21,777 --> 00:50:23,951
and supporters of white supremacy,

883
00:50:24,021 --> 00:50:29,164
and this new and growing group
of African-American voters.

884
00:50:29,233 --> 00:50:35,135
Truman knows that any move
that he makes on civil rights,

885
00:50:35,204 --> 00:50:39,829
he risks alienating
Southern white Democrats.

886
00:50:39,898 --> 00:50:43,833
But at this moment,

887
00:50:43,902 --> 00:50:48,942
when he sees a representative
of the United States,

888
00:50:49,011 --> 00:50:55,224
a soldier in uniform,
Isaac Woodard, who is maimed...

889
00:50:55,293 --> 00:50:57,192
it sounds simplistic,
but I think something

890
00:50:57,261 --> 00:50:59,711
just kind of clicks in him,
that this simply cannot stand.

891
00:50:59,780 --> 00:51:02,300
♪

892
00:51:02,369 --> 00:51:05,821
We hold ourselves up
as the beacon of democracy.

893
00:51:05,890 --> 00:51:08,893
We hold ourselves up as moral leaders.

894
00:51:08,962 --> 00:51:13,898
Moral leaders do not blind
their own servicemen.

895
00:51:13,967 --> 00:51:19,904
♪

896
00:51:19,973 --> 00:51:22,251
NARRATOR:
On December 5, 1946,

897
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,737
one month after the acquittal
of Isaac Woodard's attacker,

898
00:51:25,806 --> 00:51:28,982
Harry Truman signed
an executive order establishing

899
00:51:29,051 --> 00:51:32,019
the President's Committee on Civil Rights.

900
00:51:32,089 --> 00:51:35,851
The president charged his new
committee with laying bare

901
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:39,268
hard truths about the
intimidation and violence used

902
00:51:39,337 --> 00:51:41,857
to enforce racial segregation,

903
00:51:41,926 --> 00:51:45,861
and with recommending concrete
measures to safeguard

904
00:51:45,930 --> 00:51:48,208
the rights of every American,

905
00:51:48,277 --> 00:51:51,384
regardless of race, creed, or religion.

906
00:51:51,453 --> 00:51:53,489
♪

907
00:51:53,558 --> 00:51:56,872
MACK:
Harry Truman is a politician,

908
00:51:56,941 --> 00:52:01,463
and political considerations
are never far from

909
00:52:01,532 --> 00:52:04,466
the ambit of a politician's decisions.

910
00:52:06,468 --> 00:52:09,160
But there were certain actions
he took which could not be

911
00:52:09,229 --> 00:52:13,337
explained on the basis
of political advantage.

912
00:52:13,406 --> 00:52:16,857
He appointed the President's
Committee on Civil Rights,

913
00:52:16,926 --> 00:52:21,207
I think, probably more for moral
reasons than anything else.

914
00:52:21,276 --> 00:52:22,242
He saw injustice.

915
00:52:22,311 --> 00:52:23,347
He was outraged by it.

916
00:52:23,416 --> 00:52:25,349
He thought that he should do something.

917
00:52:25,418 --> 00:52:30,250
And given Truman's background,
it undoubtedly was a surprise

918
00:52:30,319 --> 00:52:33,874
to civil rights advocates.

919
00:52:33,943 --> 00:52:36,049
JAMES: Truman said many
things that were absolutely racist

920
00:52:36,118 --> 00:52:37,775
and indefensible.

921
00:52:37,844 --> 00:52:41,744
They were what we would consider
of the time for a white man

922
00:52:41,813 --> 00:52:44,402
from Missouri.

923
00:52:44,471 --> 00:52:47,888
But Truman saw no contradiction
between these personal views

924
00:52:47,957 --> 00:52:51,823
and what he saw as
America's legal obligations

925
00:52:51,892 --> 00:52:53,480
to its citizens.

926
00:52:53,549 --> 00:52:55,931
That it does not matter
what you personally feel,

927
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:57,691
whom you would have to your home
for dinner,

928
00:52:57,760 --> 00:52:59,659
or whom you would have
a glass of bourbon with

929
00:52:59,728 --> 00:53:00,867
at the end of the day.

930
00:53:00,936 --> 00:53:03,594
What matters is that
these people have rights

931
00:53:03,663 --> 00:53:04,836
under the constitution

932
00:53:04,905 --> 00:53:08,185
because this is
the United States of America.

933
00:53:08,254 --> 00:53:11,878
["Lift Every Voice and Sing" playing]

934
00:53:18,574 --> 00:53:23,096
CHOIR: ♪ <i>Lift every voice and sing</i> ♪

935
00:53:23,165 --> 00:53:27,825
MAN: ♪ <i>Lift every voice and sing</i> ♪

936
00:53:27,894 --> 00:53:33,279
NARRATOR: On a brutally hot,
humid day at the end of June 1947,

937
00:53:33,348 --> 00:53:37,697
an audience of 10,000...
many of them African American...

938
00:53:37,766 --> 00:53:42,840
gathered on the Capitol Mall
in a state of high anticipation.

939
00:53:42,909 --> 00:53:48,190
[people chattering]

940
00:53:50,261 --> 00:53:52,608
Harry Truman was about to do

941
00:53:52,677 --> 00:53:56,819
what no United States president
had ever done.

942
00:53:56,888 --> 00:54:00,720
He had accepted an invitation
from Walter White

943
00:54:00,789 --> 00:54:03,861
to address the annual convention
of the N.A.A.C.P.

944
00:54:03,930 --> 00:54:06,829
at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

945
00:54:06,898 --> 00:54:13,974
RICHARD GERGEL: The N.A.A.C.P.
was considered a radical organization.

946
00:54:14,043 --> 00:54:16,183
Some Southern politicians considered it

947
00:54:16,253 --> 00:54:19,532
a Communist front organization.

948
00:54:19,601 --> 00:54:21,258
I mean, if you were a member

949
00:54:21,327 --> 00:54:24,778
of the N.A.A.C.P. in the South
and you were a school teacher,

950
00:54:24,847 --> 00:54:26,711
you were probably going to get fired.

951
00:54:26,780 --> 00:54:31,129
And to have Harry Truman
go in front and speak

952
00:54:31,198 --> 00:54:35,341
to the N.A.A.C.P.
was a remarkable moment.

953
00:54:35,410 --> 00:54:41,450
He had multiple drafts of the speech done.

954
00:54:41,519 --> 00:54:43,280
He was editing it himself,

955
00:54:43,349 --> 00:54:46,731
and he wrote a letter
to his sister, and he says,

956
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:48,319
"I'm getting ready to give a speech

957
00:54:48,388 --> 00:54:50,252
that Mama isn't going to like."

958
00:54:50,321 --> 00:54:53,428
TRUMAN:
Mrs. Roosevelt,

959
00:54:53,497 --> 00:54:55,602
Senator Morris,

960
00:54:55,671 --> 00:54:58,743
distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen,

961
00:54:58,812 --> 00:55:01,884
I should like to talk to you briefly

962
00:55:01,953 --> 00:55:06,233
about civil rights and human freedom.

963
00:55:06,303 --> 00:55:09,202
It is more important today

964
00:55:09,271 --> 00:55:13,137
than ever before to ensure

965
00:55:13,206 --> 00:55:17,935
that all Americans enjoy these rights.

966
00:55:18,004 --> 00:55:20,558
[applause]

967
00:55:20,627 --> 00:55:25,598
When I say all Americans,
I mean all Americans.

968
00:55:27,220 --> 00:55:29,395
[louder applause]

969
00:55:33,813 --> 00:55:36,263
JAMES: The theme can
be summed up in two words

970
00:55:36,333 --> 00:55:38,714
that Truman used several times
in the speech,

971
00:55:38,783 --> 00:55:40,440
which was only 12 minutes long.

972
00:55:40,509 --> 00:55:42,753
And those two words are
"all Americans."

973
00:55:42,822 --> 00:55:45,272
He kept repeating the phrase
"all Americans."

974
00:55:45,342 --> 00:55:51,865
There is no justifiable reason
for discrimination

975
00:55:51,934 --> 00:55:57,975
because of ancestry,
or religion, or race, or color.

976
00:55:58,044 --> 00:56:01,772
[applause]

977
00:56:01,841 --> 00:56:06,155
We cannot any longer await
the growth of a will to action

978
00:56:06,224 --> 00:56:10,194
in the slowest state
or the most backward community.

979
00:56:10,263 --> 00:56:13,404
[applause]

980
00:56:13,473 --> 00:56:17,857
Our national government must show the way.

981
00:56:17,926 --> 00:56:21,826
[applause]

982
00:56:21,895 --> 00:56:24,864
RICHARD GERGEL:
It was a stunning speech.

983
00:56:24,933 --> 00:56:28,350
And when he sat down, Walter
White, sitting next to him,

984
00:56:28,419 --> 00:56:31,353
is in disbelief.

985
00:56:31,422 --> 00:56:34,425
And he said,
"Mr. President, I just...

986
00:56:34,494 --> 00:56:36,531
I can't believe
what you just said."

987
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:39,603
And he said, "Walter,
I meant every word of it."

988
00:56:41,950 --> 00:56:45,816
[birds chirping]

989
00:56:45,885 --> 00:56:49,129
♪

990
00:56:51,062 --> 00:56:55,342
NARRATOR: Judge J. Waties Waring
had become increasingly convinced

991
00:56:55,412 --> 00:56:59,554
that a bitter fight over racism
was coming to South Carolina.

992
00:56:59,623 --> 00:57:04,351
He would later remember that he
was faced with two choices:

993
00:57:04,421 --> 00:57:06,388
"Either you were going to be governed by

994
00:57:06,457 --> 00:57:09,115
"the white supremacy doctrine
and just shut your eyes

995
00:57:09,184 --> 00:57:11,358
"and bowl this thing through,

996
00:57:11,428 --> 00:57:13,706
"or you were going to be a federal judge

997
00:57:13,775 --> 00:57:17,951
and decide the law...
that was the issue."

998
00:57:19,953 --> 00:57:24,337
RICHARD GERGEL: A judge
doesn't normally go and pick his cases,

999
00:57:24,406 --> 00:57:26,270
but Judge Waring tells his clerk,

1000
00:57:26,339 --> 00:57:29,963
"Keep an eye open
for new civil rights cases.

1001
00:57:30,032 --> 00:57:31,482
Let me know when they have
occurred."

1002
00:57:31,551 --> 00:57:34,554
♪

1003
00:57:34,623 --> 00:57:36,314
NARRATOR: That evening,
Waties told Elizabeth about

1004
00:57:36,383 --> 00:57:38,420
an explosive new case he was considering

1005
00:57:38,489 --> 00:57:39,801
for his trial docket.

1006
00:57:42,666 --> 00:57:44,806
The case, Elmore v. Rice,

1007
00:57:44,875 --> 00:57:47,084
had originated when George Elmore,

1008
00:57:47,153 --> 00:57:49,017
a prosperous Black businessman,

1009
00:57:49,086 --> 00:57:52,123
had been told by the
South Carolina Democratic Party

1010
00:57:52,192 --> 00:57:55,713
that he was ineligible to vote
in the upcoming primary.

1011
00:57:58,820 --> 00:58:01,547
Denying Elmore the right to vote
was in direct violation

1012
00:58:01,616 --> 00:58:04,204
of the Supreme Court's 1944 ruling

1013
00:58:04,273 --> 00:58:08,830
in Smith v. Allwright, which
banned the whites-only primary.

1014
00:58:11,488 --> 00:58:14,007
IFILL: When you win a
Supreme Court case like that,

1015
00:58:14,076 --> 00:58:16,769
what is supposed to happen
is everyone is supposed

1016
00:58:16,838 --> 00:58:19,392
to comply with the judgment of the court.

1017
00:58:19,461 --> 00:58:20,945
South Carolina doesn't.

1018
00:58:21,014 --> 00:58:23,361
The South Carolina Democratic
Party says, "Well,

1019
00:58:23,430 --> 00:58:25,294
"you know, that may be what
the Supreme Court said

1020
00:58:25,363 --> 00:58:27,296
"but they must've been talking to Texas.

1021
00:58:27,365 --> 00:58:28,263
They couldn't have been
talking to us."

1022
00:58:28,332 --> 00:58:32,370
♪

1023
00:58:32,439 --> 00:58:36,133
NARRATOR: South Carolina's segregationist
Democrats adopted the strategy

1024
00:58:36,202 --> 00:58:39,446
of willful ignorance for a reason.

1025
00:58:39,516 --> 00:58:43,209
The Black population in
South Carolina stood

1026
00:58:43,278 --> 00:58:47,316
at roughly 40 percent,
second only to Mississippi's.

1027
00:58:47,385 --> 00:58:50,630
And that was a lot of potential voters

1028
00:58:50,699 --> 00:58:53,426
who might start demanding equal rights.

1029
00:58:53,495 --> 00:58:55,877
♪

1030
00:59:00,847 --> 00:59:03,747
So even though the Supreme Court
had left no wiggle room

1031
00:59:03,816 --> 00:59:06,819
in striking down the all-white primary,

1032
00:59:06,888 --> 00:59:10,305
the white power structure in the
state executed a spectacular

1033
00:59:10,374 --> 00:59:14,171
end run around the ruling.

1034
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:19,452
RICHARD GERGEL: It repealed every
law on the books relating to the primary

1035
00:59:19,521 --> 00:59:22,559
and then claimed the 14th Amendment

1036
00:59:22,628 --> 00:59:24,940
did not apply to the Democratic
Party of South Carolina,

1037
00:59:25,009 --> 00:59:26,563
because there was no state action.

1038
00:59:26,632 --> 00:59:29,186
This was a private club having
an election.

1039
00:59:31,015 --> 00:59:33,811
MACK: Voting is really the
lynchpin of the rest of the system.

1040
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:36,918
Whites have to be in power

1041
00:59:36,987 --> 00:59:39,817
to control the mechanisms of the state.

1042
00:59:39,886 --> 00:59:42,302
To do that, they have
to suppress Black voting.

1043
00:59:44,822 --> 00:59:47,825
So, Elmore, for Judge Waring,

1044
00:59:47,894 --> 00:59:52,071
is going to involve a direct
challenge to the system

1045
00:59:52,140 --> 00:59:57,421
of Southern repression,
domination, and segregation,

1046
00:59:57,490 --> 01:00:01,494
unlike almost all of the cases
that came before it.

1047
01:00:05,532 --> 01:00:07,949
RICHARD GERGEL: So
Judge Waring said to Elizabeth,

1048
01:00:08,018 --> 01:00:11,159
"I need to tell you I've taken this case.

1049
01:00:11,228 --> 01:00:12,609
"And we, up to this point,

1050
01:00:12,678 --> 01:00:14,611
"we've been doing this kind
of privately, we haven't

1051
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:17,096
"really been discussing
our views with others.

1052
01:00:17,165 --> 01:00:20,030
"But if I rule for Mr. Elmore,

1053
01:00:20,099 --> 01:00:22,619
our lives will never
be the same."

1054
01:00:22,688 --> 01:00:26,830
Elizabeth looked at him
and said, "You go for it.

1055
01:00:26,899 --> 01:00:29,073
"It's the right thing to do.

1056
01:00:29,142 --> 01:00:33,215
I will be with you
every step of the way."

1057
01:00:33,284 --> 01:00:37,806
♪

1058
01:00:37,875 --> 01:00:41,914
NARRATOR: In June of 1947,
J. Waties Waring headed back

1059
01:00:41,983 --> 01:00:44,813
to the same courtroom where
Isaac Woodard's testimony

1060
01:00:44,882 --> 01:00:48,575
had so shaken him
just eight months earlier,

1061
01:00:48,645 --> 01:00:51,440
this time to hear
Elmore v. Rice.

1062
01:00:51,509 --> 01:00:56,687
Representing George Elmore were
the N.A.A.C.P.'s top attorneys,

1063
01:00:56,756 --> 01:01:01,312
Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter.

1064
01:01:01,381 --> 01:01:05,592
In court, attorneys for
the South Carolina Democrats

1065
01:01:05,662 --> 01:01:07,664
expounded their novel argument:

1066
01:01:07,733 --> 01:01:11,357
the Democratic Party was a private club,

1067
01:01:11,426 --> 01:01:13,566
and enjoyed the right
to restrict its membership

1068
01:01:13,635 --> 01:01:15,154
as it saw fit.

1069
01:01:15,223 --> 01:01:17,397
The federal court had no more business

1070
01:01:17,466 --> 01:01:19,848
directing their elections
than it did directing

1071
01:01:19,917 --> 01:01:23,231
a ladies sewing circle.

1072
01:01:23,300 --> 01:01:25,026
Judge Waring was not impressed.

1073
01:01:27,166 --> 01:01:30,928
IFILL: If you are a judge, and a
judge who's now awakening

1074
01:01:30,997 --> 01:01:33,206
to the reality of white supremacy

1075
01:01:33,275 --> 01:01:35,864
and racial discrimination,
as Waties Waring is,

1076
01:01:35,933 --> 01:01:38,902
you understand that this case
actually constitutes

1077
01:01:38,971 --> 01:01:41,801
an opportunity to talk about the
role of the Supreme Court

1078
01:01:41,870 --> 01:01:44,631
in relationship to Southern states,

1079
01:01:44,701 --> 01:01:48,118
the way in which political power
is harnessed and controlled

1080
01:01:48,187 --> 01:01:51,915
as part of white supremacy,
and as a way to talk about

1081
01:01:51,984 --> 01:01:54,503
what the power of local judges are

1082
01:01:54,572 --> 01:01:58,162
to stop white supremacists in the South

1083
01:01:58,231 --> 01:02:00,578
from carrying out their plans.

1084
01:02:03,202 --> 01:02:06,584
NARRATOR: Waring issued
his ruling on July 12, 1947,

1085
01:02:06,653 --> 01:02:09,139
just two weeks after Truman's appearance

1086
01:02:09,208 --> 01:02:12,970
at the national convention
of the N.A.A.C.P.

1087
01:02:13,039 --> 01:02:17,734
He found for Elmore, quoting
directly from Truman's speech:

1088
01:02:17,803 --> 01:02:21,082
"We can no longer afford the
luxury of a leisurely attack

1089
01:02:21,151 --> 01:02:23,636
"upon prejudice and discrimination.

1090
01:02:23,705 --> 01:02:27,467
"We cannot, any longer, await
the growth of a will to action

1091
01:02:27,536 --> 01:02:31,955
in the slowest state
or the most backward community."

1092
01:02:32,024 --> 01:02:34,060
GERGEL:
He says it's a joke.

1093
01:02:34,129 --> 01:02:36,131
It's a ridiculous argument.

1094
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:39,341
Private clubs do not elect the
president of the United States.

1095
01:02:39,410 --> 01:02:44,864
And he finished the order
with a resounding call

1096
01:02:44,933 --> 01:02:46,003
for his South Carolinians.

1097
01:02:46,072 --> 01:02:48,143
He said, "It is time

1098
01:02:48,212 --> 01:02:51,181
"for South Carolina to rejoin the union

1099
01:02:51,250 --> 01:02:55,530
and to adopt the American way
of conducting elections."

1100
01:02:55,599 --> 01:02:58,188
IFILL:
There was no effort to uphold

1101
01:02:58,257 --> 01:03:02,226
the nobility of Southern white
supremacy, right?

1102
01:03:02,295 --> 01:03:04,470
He's calling it out for what it is.

1103
01:03:04,539 --> 01:03:11,235
♪

1104
01:03:18,967 --> 01:03:23,006
For Judge Waring,
standing as a figure alone

1105
01:03:23,075 --> 01:03:28,459
in a deeply entrenched Southern community,

1106
01:03:28,528 --> 01:03:31,428
it is his farewell.

1107
01:03:31,497 --> 01:03:34,396
It's his farewell to the society
in which he grew up

1108
01:03:34,465 --> 01:03:39,677
and it marks an articulation
of his decision to go it alone

1109
01:03:39,746 --> 01:03:42,059
with his wife in that community.

1110
01:03:46,961 --> 01:03:49,687
[crowd applauding]

1111
01:03:49,756 --> 01:03:51,137
NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The
Southern revolt against President Truman

1112
01:03:51,206 --> 01:03:52,138
reaches its climax at Birmingham,

1113
01:03:52,207 --> 01:03:53,899
under the States' Rights banner.

1114
01:03:53,968 --> 01:03:56,487
More than 6,000 flock
to the rump convention

1115
01:03:56,556 --> 01:03:58,696
to select the presidential ticket.

1116
01:03:58,765 --> 01:04:00,906
Thirteen Southern states are represented

1117
01:04:00,975 --> 01:04:03,253
in the uproarious session,
which precedes the nomination

1118
01:04:03,322 --> 01:04:04,910
of Governors Thurmond of South Carolina,

1119
01:04:04,979 --> 01:04:07,015
and Fielding Wright of Mississippi

1120
01:04:07,084 --> 01:04:08,534
as party standard bearers.

1121
01:04:08,603 --> 01:04:12,676
♪

1122
01:04:12,745 --> 01:04:15,092
NARRATOR: By the time the
next election season arrived,

1123
01:04:15,161 --> 01:04:18,199
a huge swath of Southern
Democrats had had enough

1124
01:04:18,268 --> 01:04:21,340
of what they called
"federal intrusion."

1125
01:04:21,409 --> 01:04:26,483
Segregationists had held sway
in local politics for decades,

1126
01:04:26,552 --> 01:04:28,588
and they didn't intend to be pushed around

1127
01:04:28,657 --> 01:04:30,452
by the United States Supreme Court,

1128
01:04:30,521 --> 01:04:34,111
or federal judges
like J. Waties Waring,

1129
01:04:34,180 --> 01:04:38,564
or even the president.

1130
01:04:38,633 --> 01:04:40,497
[crowd cheering]

1131
01:04:40,566 --> 01:04:43,362
MAN:
Good-bye Harry, good-bye Harry!

1132
01:04:45,226 --> 01:04:48,885
MACK: At the 1948
Democratic National Convention,

1133
01:04:48,954 --> 01:04:51,784
Dixiecrats walk out
over the civil rights plank

1134
01:04:51,853 --> 01:04:55,339
prompted by President Truman's
actions, originally,

1135
01:04:55,408 --> 01:04:58,377
and Strom Thurmond runs
as a presidential candidate

1136
01:04:58,446 --> 01:04:59,826
on behalf of the Dixiecrats.

1137
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:07,593
In the words of John Paul Jones,
"We have just begun to fight!"

1138
01:05:07,662 --> 01:05:10,907
[crowd cheering]

1139
01:05:10,976 --> 01:05:13,633
FREDERICKSON: There are
thousands of white people in attendance.

1140
01:05:13,702 --> 01:05:19,225
The hall is decorated in
red, white, and blue bunting.

1141
01:05:19,294 --> 01:05:22,401
It is festooned with Confederate flags.

1142
01:05:22,470 --> 01:05:27,233
People are holding aloft
pictures of Robert E. Lee.

1143
01:05:27,302 --> 01:05:30,340
There's no question as to sort of

1144
01:05:30,409 --> 01:05:33,412
the animating spirit of this group,

1145
01:05:33,481 --> 01:05:37,002
which is to return the South to the past,

1146
01:05:37,071 --> 01:05:39,521
to maintain the racial status quo,

1147
01:05:39,590 --> 01:05:42,352
to maintain white supremacy.

1148
01:05:42,421 --> 01:05:45,734
It's another effort on the part
of this president

1149
01:05:45,803 --> 01:05:51,948
to dominate the country by force
and to put into effect

1150
01:05:52,017 --> 01:05:56,642
these uncalled for and these
damnable proposals

1151
01:05:56,711 --> 01:06:00,542
he has recommended under the
guise of so-called civil rights.

1152
01:06:00,611 --> 01:06:03,511
And I tell you the American
people, from one side

1153
01:06:03,580 --> 01:06:08,136
or the other, had better wake up
and oppose such a program.

1154
01:06:08,205 --> 01:06:10,311
And if they don't, the next thing will be

1155
01:06:10,380 --> 01:06:13,176
a totalitarian state
in these United States.

1156
01:06:13,245 --> 01:06:15,764
[crowd cheering]

1157
01:06:15,833 --> 01:06:17,421
FREDERICKSON:
The Dixiecrats,

1158
01:06:17,490 --> 01:06:19,872
their goal is to be a spoiler,

1159
01:06:19,941 --> 01:06:23,876
to deny either major party a majority

1160
01:06:23,945 --> 01:06:25,602
of electoral college votes,

1161
01:06:25,671 --> 01:06:27,880
thereby throwing the election

1162
01:06:27,949 --> 01:06:31,366
into the House of
Representatives, where they can

1163
01:06:31,435 --> 01:06:35,267
use their power to win
concessions on civil rights.

1164
01:06:35,336 --> 01:06:39,512
♪

1165
01:06:39,581 --> 01:06:42,964
Truman didn't blink,
and he didn't retreat.

1166
01:06:43,033 --> 01:06:46,795
Nine days after the Dixiecrat revolt,

1167
01:06:46,864 --> 01:06:49,212
he gave the States Righters
a little primer

1168
01:06:49,281 --> 01:06:50,592
in presidential power.

1169
01:06:52,042 --> 01:06:53,802
Truman signed an executive order

1170
01:06:53,871 --> 01:06:56,219
desegregating the federal workforce

1171
01:06:56,288 --> 01:06:58,773
and, more shockingly,

1172
01:06:58,842 --> 01:07:01,776
the entirety of the
United States Armed Forces.

1173
01:07:04,296 --> 01:07:06,608
FREDERICKSON: Desegregating
the military is something

1174
01:07:06,677 --> 01:07:08,886
that Truman could do with a
stroke of a pen.

1175
01:07:08,955 --> 01:07:11,820
He does it because he's already seen

1176
01:07:11,889 --> 01:07:14,858
the worst that Southerners are
going to do, right?

1177
01:07:14,927 --> 01:07:18,482
They've already staged a revolt,
so why not go all in?

1178
01:07:18,551 --> 01:07:24,695
RICHARD GERGEL: A lifelong friend
writes him a letter and says, "Harry,

1179
01:07:24,764 --> 01:07:27,560
"get off this civil rights thing.

1180
01:07:27,629 --> 01:07:30,598
If you don't do it, you're going
to lose the election."

1181
01:07:30,667 --> 01:07:33,325
Truman writes him a letter back

1182
01:07:33,394 --> 01:07:35,361
and says,
"You don't know what I know."

1183
01:07:37,329 --> 01:07:41,574
He then tells him the story of
the blinding of Isaac Woodard.

1184
01:07:41,643 --> 01:07:44,612
He mentions these other
atrocities as well,

1185
01:07:44,681 --> 01:07:50,031
and he says, "If I lose the
election over this issue,

1186
01:07:50,100 --> 01:07:51,653
it will have been for
a good cause."

1187
01:07:54,311 --> 01:07:59,247
In that way, President Truman
and Judge Waring are the same.

1188
01:07:59,316 --> 01:08:02,837
Every instinct of political
survival should have told

1189
01:08:02,906 --> 01:08:06,461
both of them to keep their hand
off the hotspot of the oven.

1190
01:08:06,530 --> 01:08:10,224
Both of them went to the hotspot.

1191
01:08:10,293 --> 01:08:13,192
♪

1192
01:08:19,612 --> 01:08:23,133
NARRATOR:
As the 1948 primary approached,

1193
01:08:23,202 --> 01:08:26,378
South Carolina Democrats
were brazenly evading

1194
01:08:26,447 --> 01:08:28,138
Waring's decision in Elmore...

1195
01:08:30,451 --> 01:08:34,179
allowing Black South Carolinians
to register to vote

1196
01:08:34,248 --> 01:08:36,353
only after they signed an oath

1197
01:08:36,422 --> 01:08:40,702
declaring their opposition
to racial integration.

1198
01:08:40,771 --> 01:08:49,815
♪

1199
01:08:49,884 --> 01:08:52,058
Waring summoned nearly a hundred officials

1200
01:08:52,128 --> 01:08:54,992
of the South Carolina Democratic Party

1201
01:08:55,061 --> 01:08:56,925
and ordered them to register
Black citizens

1202
01:08:56,994 --> 01:09:00,446
without swearing any oath.

1203
01:09:00,515 --> 01:09:04,070
RICHARD GERGEL: He
tells them that a federal judge

1204
01:09:04,140 --> 01:09:07,384
faced with contempt has two choices.

1205
01:09:07,453 --> 01:09:13,252
He can impose a fine or a prison sentence.

1206
01:09:13,321 --> 01:09:16,152
He says, "If you violate my order again,

1207
01:09:16,221 --> 01:09:18,223
there will be no fines."

1208
01:09:20,156 --> 01:09:24,781
The message that he was prepared
to jail white men

1209
01:09:24,850 --> 01:09:28,060
for depriving African Americans
the right to vote

1210
01:09:28,129 --> 01:09:33,272
hit the white establishment
like a thunderbolt.

1211
01:09:33,341 --> 01:09:38,760
♪

1212
01:09:41,867 --> 01:09:43,869
NARRATOR: Threatening letters
began arriving at the courthouse

1213
01:09:43,938 --> 01:09:47,044
and at Judge Waring's home soon after.

1214
01:09:48,529 --> 01:09:51,463
Obscene calls came into
his phone line so frequently

1215
01:09:51,532 --> 01:09:54,259
that he was forced to disconnect
his service.

1216
01:09:56,675 --> 01:09:59,988
FREDERICKSON: White
Southerners, as much as they despise

1217
01:10:00,057 --> 01:10:02,784
African Americans
and despise civil rights,

1218
01:10:02,853 --> 01:10:07,133
they often level the most venom
against people

1219
01:10:07,203 --> 01:10:09,757
they think are traitors,
and that would be Waring.

1220
01:10:09,826 --> 01:10:13,726
♪

1221
01:10:13,795 --> 01:10:15,901
NARRATOR: The Warings
lived their lives more and more

1222
01:10:15,970 --> 01:10:18,524
on their own terms.

1223
01:10:18,593 --> 01:10:20,733
Neighbors were particularly scandalized

1224
01:10:20,802 --> 01:10:23,633
by the unlikely visitors
that were seen calling

1225
01:10:23,702 --> 01:10:26,291
at 61 Meeting Street.

1226
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:28,569
RICHARD GERGEL: They
became friendly with a number

1227
01:10:28,638 --> 01:10:31,468
of African-American activists.

1228
01:10:31,537 --> 01:10:36,335
Septima Clark, who was a fiery
advocate for civil rights,

1229
01:10:36,404 --> 01:10:37,957
was very close with the Warings,

1230
01:10:38,026 --> 01:10:40,477
was a frequent visitor
in the house at a time

1231
01:10:40,546 --> 01:10:42,583
that Black people only entered

1232
01:10:42,652 --> 01:10:45,448
the homes of white people
through the back door as maids.

1233
01:10:45,517 --> 01:10:49,210
Ruby Cornwell was the matriarch
of the civil rights community

1234
01:10:49,279 --> 01:10:50,901
in Charleston.

1235
01:10:50,970 --> 01:10:54,250
She was a frequent visitor
and a close friend.

1236
01:10:54,319 --> 01:10:57,045
But perhaps the most interesting
relationship

1237
01:10:57,114 --> 01:10:58,909
that Judge Waring develops

1238
01:10:58,978 --> 01:11:02,810
is a close, personal
relationship with Walter White...

1239
01:11:02,879 --> 01:11:06,331
then the most important civil
rights leader in America.

1240
01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:09,575
The Warings just got to the point,

1241
01:11:09,644 --> 01:11:12,302
they didn't care what other
people thought.

1242
01:11:12,371 --> 01:11:15,857
There's a very famous photograph
of the Warings,

1243
01:11:15,926 --> 01:11:18,170
featured in "Collier's" magazine,

1244
01:11:18,239 --> 01:11:21,311
that showed a dinner party
at the Warings' house.

1245
01:11:21,380 --> 01:11:24,280
The article was titled,
"The Lonesomest Man in Town,"

1246
01:11:24,349 --> 01:11:26,212
but he didn't look that lonesome.

1247
01:11:26,282 --> 01:11:30,803
He had lots of friends
at his dinner table.

1248
01:11:30,872 --> 01:11:34,186
The only notable part was they
were all African American.

1249
01:11:34,255 --> 01:11:38,673
BELINDA GERGEL: They're
socializing, they're laughing,

1250
01:11:38,742 --> 01:11:44,196
they're enjoying each other's
friendship as equals,

1251
01:11:44,265 --> 01:11:48,614
and that was terrifying
to white Charlestonians.

1252
01:11:48,683 --> 01:11:52,515
NARRATOR: Elizabeth's willingness
to flout the social conventions

1253
01:11:52,584 --> 01:11:57,174
of Charleston society and her
candor about Southern racism

1254
01:11:57,243 --> 01:11:59,625
brought unprecedented national attention

1255
01:11:59,694 --> 01:12:02,248
to the wife of a sitting federal judge.

1256
01:12:02,318 --> 01:12:06,183
♪

1257
01:12:06,252 --> 01:12:10,360
BELINDA GERGEL:
She found her voice.

1258
01:12:10,429 --> 01:12:14,399
And she put white Charlestonians

1259
01:12:14,468 --> 01:12:18,161
on notice that that was going
to be a voice that

1260
01:12:18,230 --> 01:12:20,474
she would not hesitate to use.

1261
01:12:20,543 --> 01:12:22,890
♪

1262
01:12:22,959 --> 01:12:24,926
She was invited,

1263
01:12:24,995 --> 01:12:28,102
one of the first women,
to come on "Meet the Press."

1264
01:12:28,171 --> 01:12:31,001
NEWS ANNOUNCER: Tonight from Washington,
D.C., this is J. Waties Waring

1265
01:12:31,070 --> 01:12:32,796
of Charleston, South Carolina,

1266
01:12:32,865 --> 01:12:35,281
wife of federal Judge Waring
who stirred up a hornet's nest

1267
01:12:35,351 --> 01:12:38,733
in the South by her vigorous
attack on white supremacy.

1268
01:12:38,802 --> 01:12:40,977
MARY JAMES COTTRELL [archival]:
Mrs. Waring, you charged in your speech

1269
01:12:41,046 --> 01:12:43,359
before the YWCA group in Charleston

1270
01:12:43,428 --> 01:12:45,947
that the whites down here are a sick,

1271
01:12:46,016 --> 01:12:48,398
confused, and decadent people,

1272
01:12:48,467 --> 01:12:51,436
and that like all decadent
people, they are full of pride

1273
01:12:51,505 --> 01:12:55,681
and complacency, introverted,
morally weak, and low.

1274
01:12:55,750 --> 01:12:58,788
What brought you to this
drastic conclusion?

1275
01:12:58,857 --> 01:13:01,618
ELIZABETH WARING [archival]:
Living there and observing them,

1276
01:13:01,687 --> 01:13:04,345
a very deep study of the subject.

1277
01:13:04,414 --> 01:13:10,524
Any people who enslave the minds
and bodies of another people

1278
01:13:10,593 --> 01:13:14,873
are bound to destroy their own souls.

1279
01:13:14,942 --> 01:13:17,151
MACK:
In ordinary circumstances,

1280
01:13:17,220 --> 01:13:21,120
the spouse of a judge would
not do what she did.

1281
01:13:21,189 --> 01:13:24,400
But given the depth of the problem,

1282
01:13:24,469 --> 01:13:26,988
the importance that somebody speak out,

1283
01:13:27,057 --> 01:13:29,266
she felt as though she should.

1284
01:13:29,335 --> 01:13:33,270
COTTRELL [archival]: <i>Are you crusading
only for the Negro's civil rights,</i>

1285
01:13:33,339 --> 01:13:36,929
<i>such as the freedom to vote,
freedom of safety of his person,</i>

1286
01:13:36,998 --> 01:13:39,587
<i>and freedom from lynching,
and so forth, or are you</i>

1287
01:13:39,656 --> 01:13:42,003
<i>for social integration,
is that what you want, too?</i>

1288
01:13:42,072 --> 01:13:43,510
[Elizabeth Waring, archival]
<i>I want the whole thing,</i>

1289
01:13:43,594 --> 01:13:46,180
<i>I want him to go through the
same door, and so does the judge.</i>

1290
01:13:46,264 --> 01:13:48,009
<i>I want him to be an equal citizen.</i>

1291
01:13:48,078 --> 01:13:52,704
♪

1292
01:13:52,773 --> 01:13:56,639
NARRATOR: Reaction in South
Carolina was swift and predictable.

1293
01:13:56,708 --> 01:13:59,400
State legislators appropriated $10,000

1294
01:13:59,469 --> 01:14:02,541
to fund impeachment of the judge,

1295
01:14:02,610 --> 01:14:04,440
then resolved to purchase railroad tickets

1296
01:14:04,509 --> 01:14:06,752
for the Warings, anywhere they desired,

1297
01:14:06,821 --> 01:14:11,688
as long as it was out of the
state with no return.

1298
01:14:11,757 --> 01:14:14,242
Two men were seen burning a
Ku Klux Klan cross

1299
01:14:14,311 --> 01:14:16,210
in the Warings' back garden.

1300
01:14:16,279 --> 01:14:19,006
And on a quiet evening,

1301
01:14:19,075 --> 01:14:21,146
while the Warings were home
playing canasta

1302
01:14:21,215 --> 01:14:24,287
in their drawing room,
three shots rang out

1303
01:14:24,356 --> 01:14:25,737
in front of their home.

1304
01:14:25,806 --> 01:14:28,809
[three gunshots echo]

1305
01:14:28,878 --> 01:14:32,916
BELINDA GERGEL: Their
home is right on the street

1306
01:14:32,985 --> 01:14:34,677
and they're inside

1307
01:14:34,746 --> 01:14:39,716
and suddenly two big bricks
come through the window.

1308
01:14:39,785 --> 01:14:42,512
[glass shattering]

1309
01:14:42,581 --> 01:14:45,101
They don't know if people are
coming through the window

1310
01:14:45,170 --> 01:14:47,690
and through the doors next.

1311
01:14:47,759 --> 01:14:50,037
But they're petrified.

1312
01:14:50,106 --> 01:14:52,039
They retreat to their dining room

1313
01:14:52,108 --> 01:14:53,972
where they're hiding behind a wall,

1314
01:14:54,041 --> 01:14:57,354
believing that they are under fire.

1315
01:14:57,423 --> 01:15:01,151
And within days, the
United States Attorney General

1316
01:15:01,220 --> 01:15:04,327
provided 24-hour
U.S. Marshal protection...

1317
01:15:04,396 --> 01:15:07,744
literally, marshals sleeping out
in front of his house...

1318
01:15:07,813 --> 01:15:09,401
throughout the rest of his service

1319
01:15:09,470 --> 01:15:11,265
as a United States district judge.

1320
01:15:11,334 --> 01:15:15,925
No federal judge had ever faced
such an attack.

1321
01:15:18,272 --> 01:15:22,379
NARRATOR: The judge, 70
years old and under constant siege,

1322
01:15:22,448 --> 01:15:26,004
understood his days on the bench
were numbered.

1323
01:15:26,073 --> 01:15:27,419
He confided in Elizabeth

1324
01:15:27,488 --> 01:15:32,666
that he meant to do one
big thing before he retired.

1325
01:15:32,735 --> 01:15:35,358
With her support, he fixed his sights

1326
01:15:35,427 --> 01:15:38,844
on destroying the precedent that
had underpinned legalized racism

1327
01:15:38,913 --> 01:15:42,089
in the South for more than 50 years:

1328
01:15:42,158 --> 01:15:46,300
the strange doctrine of
"separate but equal."

1329
01:15:48,060 --> 01:15:53,445
FREDERICKSON: They
are disgusted by the people

1330
01:15:53,514 --> 01:15:57,380
who have been their friends
and who have sat idly by

1331
01:15:57,449 --> 01:16:00,314
and benefited from this oppressive system.

1332
01:16:00,383 --> 01:16:04,007
And they simply can't take it anymore.

1333
01:16:04,076 --> 01:16:05,664
And he is now in this position

1334
01:16:05,733 --> 01:16:07,873
where he can do something about it.

1335
01:16:07,942 --> 01:16:09,495
What the record now shows us,

1336
01:16:09,565 --> 01:16:11,567
at the time in which the most
intense pressure

1337
01:16:11,636 --> 01:16:13,327
was being put on Judge Waring,

1338
01:16:13,396 --> 01:16:17,573
he was making the plans of what
would become

1339
01:16:17,642 --> 01:16:22,854
the Briggs v. Elliott dissent...
the case that changes America.

1340
01:16:25,995 --> 01:16:27,997
NEWSREEL REPORTER:
This is South Carolina...

1341
01:16:28,066 --> 01:16:29,515
Summerton, South Carolina...

1342
01:16:29,585 --> 01:16:32,449
a country crossroads in the rich soil,

1343
01:16:32,518 --> 01:16:34,555
isolated in time and space,

1344
01:16:34,624 --> 01:16:37,938
and given to old ways...
but not always uncritically.

1345
01:16:38,007 --> 01:16:41,148
Here, perhaps more than
elsewhere in the United States,

1346
01:16:41,217 --> 01:16:43,875
the racial patterns, the social patterns,

1347
01:16:43,944 --> 01:16:47,913
the economic patterns
are all the same pattern.

1348
01:16:47,982 --> 01:16:51,572
♪

1349
01:16:51,641 --> 01:16:52,849
NARRATOR:
Briggs v. Elliott...

1350
01:16:52,918 --> 01:16:55,093
the case that would set in motion

1351
01:16:55,162 --> 01:16:57,405
the demise of legalized segregation...

1352
01:16:57,474 --> 01:17:01,237
grew from the unlikeliest soil
in the nation.

1353
01:17:01,306 --> 01:17:03,929
♪

1354
01:17:03,998 --> 01:17:06,863
Clarendon County, just 90-odd miles

1355
01:17:06,932 --> 01:17:09,176
from where Isaac Woodard had been beaten,

1356
01:17:09,245 --> 01:17:12,144
was a place well known to Judge Waring.

1357
01:17:12,213 --> 01:17:15,458
"It's in what we call the Low Country,"

1358
01:17:15,527 --> 01:17:17,425
he said of Clarendon.

1359
01:17:17,494 --> 01:17:20,118
"Swamp lands and rivers.

1360
01:17:20,187 --> 01:17:24,674
"One of the most backward
counties of the state.

1361
01:17:24,743 --> 01:17:29,645
"The Negro schools were just
tumbledown, dirty shacks

1362
01:17:29,714 --> 01:17:34,063
with horrible outdoor
toilet facilities."

1363
01:17:34,132 --> 01:17:36,824
J.A. DELAINE JR.: I lived in Summerton
and I cursed the day I was born

1364
01:17:36,893 --> 01:17:38,550
and had to live there.

1365
01:17:38,619 --> 01:17:41,864
And I vowed that when I got grown,

1366
01:17:41,933 --> 01:17:44,936
I'd never see that damn place again.

1367
01:17:46,731 --> 01:17:50,631
NATHANIEL BRIGGS: They have
talked about us as being subhuman.

1368
01:17:50,700 --> 01:17:52,875
I guess from generation to generation,

1369
01:17:52,944 --> 01:17:56,395
they couldn't accept the fact
that I'm human just like them,

1370
01:17:56,464 --> 01:17:57,500
just like them.

1371
01:18:01,849 --> 01:18:03,023
DELAINE JR.:
Most of the schools

1372
01:18:03,092 --> 01:18:06,129
operated for three to four
months out of the year.

1373
01:18:06,198 --> 01:18:09,167
And the reason for that was

1374
01:18:09,236 --> 01:18:11,583
these kids need to be in, in the fields

1375
01:18:11,652 --> 01:18:15,207
plowing cotton, or whatever.

1376
01:18:15,276 --> 01:18:18,486
So we can't have
school when they need to work

1377
01:18:18,555 --> 01:18:20,523
to get our cotton out of the fields.

1378
01:18:22,145 --> 01:18:23,768
BRIGGS: Some of the kids
in my class didn't show up

1379
01:18:23,837 --> 01:18:25,701
till around Thanksgiving.

1380
01:18:25,770 --> 01:18:27,530
Instead of being in school,

1381
01:18:27,599 --> 01:18:31,258
they was out working the farm.

1382
01:18:31,327 --> 01:18:34,502
Come early April, these kids
are out of the school,

1383
01:18:34,571 --> 01:18:37,540
going back to the farm to work.

1384
01:18:37,609 --> 01:18:39,369
And the system really didn't care.

1385
01:18:41,061 --> 01:18:44,685
It was not meant for us as
Black folks, but two things:

1386
01:18:44,754 --> 01:18:49,000
go in somebody's kitchen,
or go in somebody's fields.

1387
01:18:49,069 --> 01:18:52,313
That happened to us
a hundred years or more.

1388
01:18:52,382 --> 01:18:54,005
That's what was geared for us to do.

1389
01:18:54,074 --> 01:18:55,558
They didn't expect no more from you.

1390
01:18:55,627 --> 01:19:00,114
♪

1391
01:19:00,183 --> 01:19:03,739
NARRATOR: In 1947, local
parents in Clarendon County

1392
01:19:03,808 --> 01:19:05,879
decided to do something about the problem

1393
01:19:05,948 --> 01:19:09,020
of simply getting their children
to school.

1394
01:19:10,504 --> 01:19:11,712
There was a fleet of buses

1395
01:19:11,781 --> 01:19:15,026
for the white children in the county...

1396
01:19:15,095 --> 01:19:17,407
None for the Black children.

1397
01:19:20,790 --> 01:19:22,481
FREDERICKSON: Some of the
Black children in their community

1398
01:19:22,550 --> 01:19:24,967
have to walk nine miles to school.

1399
01:19:25,036 --> 01:19:28,418
♪

1400
01:19:28,487 --> 01:19:31,559
They have to ford a river.

1401
01:19:35,563 --> 01:19:38,049
NARRATOR: A group of
Summerton parents were able to raise

1402
01:19:38,118 --> 01:19:41,984
several hundred dollars
to buy a used school bus,

1403
01:19:42,053 --> 01:19:44,918
but the bus broke down constantly.

1404
01:19:44,987 --> 01:19:49,888
So the parents turned
to the Reverend J.A. DeLaine,

1405
01:19:49,957 --> 01:19:54,410
a principal and minister
with ties to the N.A.A.C.P.

1406
01:19:54,479 --> 01:20:00,830
DELAINE JR.: He suggested, "We'll
go in and we'll talk to the superintendent

1407
01:20:00,899 --> 01:20:07,043
"of schools about getting funds
for gas money, repair the bus,

1408
01:20:07,112 --> 01:20:10,564
and pay a salary
to who drives the bus."

1409
01:20:10,633 --> 01:20:12,083
It was turned down.

1410
01:20:12,152 --> 01:20:14,464
"Ain't got no money
for you niggers."

1411
01:20:17,122 --> 01:20:20,436
Literally, is what they...
what he was told.

1412
01:20:20,505 --> 01:20:22,990
♪

1413
01:20:23,059 --> 01:20:28,271
BRIGGS: It was told that Black
folks didn't pay enough taxes.

1414
01:20:28,340 --> 01:20:30,791
You couldn't even vote.

1415
01:20:30,860 --> 01:20:34,208
So there was no Black folks on
the school board to direct

1416
01:20:34,277 --> 01:20:38,903
and to address the issues
that was at hand.

1417
01:20:38,972 --> 01:20:40,180
So what power do you have?

1418
01:20:42,147 --> 01:20:45,875
DELAINE JR.: My father then
said, "Well, you know, let's file a suit."

1419
01:20:47,808 --> 01:20:51,570
I want to talk with Thurgood Marshall.

1420
01:20:53,676 --> 01:20:56,403
NARRATOR: Thurgood
Marshall, the 40-year-old chief

1421
01:20:56,472 --> 01:20:59,199
of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense
Fund,

1422
01:20:59,268 --> 01:21:03,306
reluctantly answered the summons
from Clarendon County.

1423
01:21:03,375 --> 01:21:08,933
[train whistling]

1424
01:21:09,002 --> 01:21:13,454
All through the 1940s, Marshall
had been making these trips

1425
01:21:13,523 --> 01:21:16,699
from New York into the heart
of the Jim Crow South.

1426
01:21:16,768 --> 01:21:20,185
He had been belittled by judges
and opposing counsel

1427
01:21:20,254 --> 01:21:22,878
who didn't think he could be an attorney,

1428
01:21:22,947 --> 01:21:26,985
threatened with violence,
and nearly lynched.

1429
01:21:29,815 --> 01:21:33,371
GILBERT KING: White Americans
who want to maintain segregation

1430
01:21:33,440 --> 01:21:36,892
recognize that Thurgood Marshall
and his legal team are becoming

1431
01:21:36,961 --> 01:21:41,034
very effective at chipping
away at that status quo.

1432
01:21:41,103 --> 01:21:43,933
And that is why his life is in
danger whenever he travels,

1433
01:21:44,002 --> 01:21:46,039
particularly when he travels in the South.

1434
01:21:49,628 --> 01:21:51,251
They would have to move him

1435
01:21:51,320 --> 01:21:52,908
around from house to house at night

1436
01:21:52,977 --> 01:21:55,462
during a trial because the Klan
was after him,

1437
01:21:55,531 --> 01:21:57,119
and they didn't want these Night Riders

1438
01:21:57,188 --> 01:21:58,396
to find out where Marshall was.

1439
01:22:00,777 --> 01:22:03,780
He was threatened constantly,
his life was always in danger...

1440
01:22:05,472 --> 01:22:07,784
and he was terrified, too.

1441
01:22:07,853 --> 01:22:09,683
But he also knew that it was important

1442
01:22:09,752 --> 01:22:11,374
for the African American communities

1443
01:22:11,443 --> 01:22:12,755
in those Jim Crow balconies

1444
01:22:12,824 --> 01:22:15,931
to look down and see an African American

1445
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:18,692
who was not a defendant,
who was in a suit,

1446
01:22:18,761 --> 01:22:21,591
who was arguing the law with white men.

1447
01:22:21,660 --> 01:22:25,802
♪

1448
01:22:25,871 --> 01:22:27,597
MACK: It was often an electric experience

1449
01:22:27,666 --> 01:22:30,152
for local African American
communities to see

1450
01:22:30,221 --> 01:22:33,569
Thurgood Marshall come to town
because he would do something

1451
01:22:33,638 --> 01:22:37,055
that nobody had ever seen before,

1452
01:22:37,124 --> 01:22:40,679
which was to address white
people and to make them answer

1453
01:22:40,748 --> 01:22:43,441
and state reasons for what
they were doing,

1454
01:22:43,510 --> 01:22:46,064
and to sometimes call them liars.

1455
01:22:47,859 --> 01:22:50,068
NARRATOR: Marshall leveled
with the Reverend DeLaine

1456
01:22:50,137 --> 01:22:53,244
and the parents of Clarendon County.

1457
01:22:53,313 --> 01:22:56,488
If the N.A.A.C.P. was going to
take on their case,

1458
01:22:56,557 --> 01:23:00,561
it was going to be about more
than a school bus.

1459
01:23:00,630 --> 01:23:03,979
He wanted to sue for total
equality with the white schools.

1460
01:23:04,048 --> 01:23:07,327
Facilities, teacher salaries,
textbooks, buses...

1461
01:23:07,396 --> 01:23:09,501
every resource the white schools had,

1462
01:23:09,570 --> 01:23:14,058
they would demand in equal
measure for the Black schools.

1463
01:23:14,127 --> 01:23:17,095
Marshall explained he wouldn't
even consider taking the case

1464
01:23:17,164 --> 01:23:21,306
until he had 20 reliable,
credible plaintiffs,

1465
01:23:21,375 --> 01:23:24,482
people who would not cower in
the face of certain intimidation

1466
01:23:24,551 --> 01:23:29,176
from the white supremacists
who ruled Clarendon County.

1467
01:23:29,245 --> 01:23:33,077
More than 20 Black citizens
agreed to sign on.

1468
01:23:46,987 --> 01:23:49,610
On November 17, 1950,

1469
01:23:49,679 --> 01:23:52,165
Thurgood Marshall hurried along
Charleston's

1470
01:23:52,234 --> 01:23:55,099
palmetto-lined streets for a
pre-trial hearing

1471
01:23:55,168 --> 01:23:56,721
with Judge Waring,

1472
01:23:56,790 --> 01:23:59,793
unaware that the judge had been
closely following

1473
01:23:59,862 --> 01:24:02,589
events in Summerton.

1474
01:24:02,658 --> 01:24:04,073
Neither man harbored any doubts

1475
01:24:04,142 --> 01:24:06,075
about the strength of Marshall's case:

1476
01:24:06,144 --> 01:24:10,562
The N.A.A.C.P. was clearly
poised to win equal facilities

1477
01:24:10,631 --> 01:24:13,876
for the Black children
of Clarendon County.

1478
01:24:13,945 --> 01:24:16,085
[school bell ringing]

1479
01:24:16,154 --> 01:24:18,570
MACK: The schools for white
children were generally the best schools

1480
01:24:18,639 --> 01:24:21,366
that the tax base
could establish and support.

1481
01:24:23,472 --> 01:24:24,956
The schools for Black children,

1482
01:24:25,025 --> 01:24:27,786
even in some middle class school
districts,

1483
01:24:27,855 --> 01:24:30,548
mocked the very notion of being schools.

1484
01:24:30,617 --> 01:24:32,860
They were visibly unequal
to the naked eye.

1485
01:24:32,929 --> 01:24:34,483
One need not even step inside

1486
01:24:34,552 --> 01:24:36,105
to see how unequal they were.

1487
01:24:38,280 --> 01:24:40,420
RICHARD GERGEL: When
Marshall arrives at the courthouse,

1488
01:24:40,489 --> 01:24:42,146
he is told by court personnel,

1489
01:24:42,215 --> 01:24:46,426
Judge Waring wants to see you
in his chambers.

1490
01:24:46,495 --> 01:24:50,361
Lawyers call this ex-parte
communication... it happened.

1491
01:24:50,430 --> 01:24:53,881
Judge Waring says to Marshall,

1492
01:24:53,950 --> 01:24:57,782
"I don't want to try any more
equalization cases.

1493
01:24:57,851 --> 01:25:00,371
Bring me a frontal challenge
to segregation."

1494
01:25:05,100 --> 01:25:09,518
FREDERICKSON: Thurgood Marshall
is absolutely floored when Waring

1495
01:25:09,587 --> 01:25:13,487
essentially tells him, "Look,
I need you to make this case,

1496
01:25:13,556 --> 01:25:16,559
get rid of segregation
altogether."

1497
01:25:16,628 --> 01:25:18,768
He basically tells Marshall,

1498
01:25:18,837 --> 01:25:20,529
"Look, you need to go
for broke here."

1499
01:25:20,598 --> 01:25:23,083
♪

1500
01:25:23,152 --> 01:25:25,844
NARRATOR: Thurgood Marshall
had dedicated much of his life

1501
01:25:25,913 --> 01:25:29,227
to overturning legalized segregation.

1502
01:25:29,296 --> 01:25:31,885
But he was playing the long game,

1503
01:25:31,954 --> 01:25:35,440
executing a strategy
he had helped to devise

1504
01:25:35,509 --> 01:25:38,133
15 years earlier.

1505
01:25:38,202 --> 01:25:40,652
Segregation had been sanctioned

1506
01:25:40,721 --> 01:25:43,655
by an 1896 Supreme Court decision

1507
01:25:43,724 --> 01:25:47,935
in a case called
Plessy v. Ferguson.

1508
01:25:48,004 --> 01:25:51,215
Homer Plessy,
a Black man from New Orleans,

1509
01:25:51,284 --> 01:25:53,631
had challenged the segregated
accommodations

1510
01:25:53,700 --> 01:25:59,671
of Louisiana's railroads and lost 8-1.

1511
01:25:59,740 --> 01:26:01,259
MACK:
Plessy v. Ferguson

1512
01:26:01,328 --> 01:26:05,608
came to be seen as symbolic of the idea of

1513
01:26:05,677 --> 01:26:06,747
separate but equal,

1514
01:26:06,816 --> 01:26:11,787
that segregation was not unconstitutional

1515
01:26:11,856 --> 01:26:16,516
as long as Blacks and whites
were given equal facilities.

1516
01:26:16,585 --> 01:26:22,280
RICHARD GERGEL: The
N.A.A.C.P. had adopted this strategy,

1517
01:26:22,349 --> 01:26:27,043
which is basically turning
Plessy v. Ferguson on its head.

1518
01:26:27,112 --> 01:26:31,151
It's a kind of sailing
west to arrive east.

1519
01:26:31,220 --> 01:26:35,328
Rather than argue against the
scourge of Plessy,

1520
01:26:35,397 --> 01:26:37,606
they argued for the fulfillment
of Plessy...

1521
01:26:37,675 --> 01:26:39,918
that the constitution
is not being satisfied,

1522
01:26:39,987 --> 01:26:41,886
not because the facilities are segregated,

1523
01:26:41,955 --> 01:26:43,301
but because they're unequal.

1524
01:26:43,370 --> 01:26:45,959
They were winning cases,

1525
01:26:46,028 --> 01:26:50,032
but the strategy had controversy
because every time

1526
01:26:50,101 --> 01:26:54,105
you use Plessy to support your theory,

1527
01:26:54,174 --> 01:26:57,764
you were driving another nail

1528
01:26:57,833 --> 01:27:02,941
into the inferior legal status
of African Americans.

1529
01:27:03,010 --> 01:27:05,979
JAMES: The question
that faced Marshall was,

1530
01:27:06,048 --> 01:27:09,638
when do we move away from the
equalization strategy

1531
01:27:09,707 --> 01:27:12,399
and begin to argue that separate but equal

1532
01:27:12,468 --> 01:27:15,230
is unconstitutional?

1533
01:27:15,299 --> 01:27:20,890
And Marshall was rightly
cautious about when and where

1534
01:27:20,959 --> 01:27:22,651
to make that claim,

1535
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:26,482
because if he chose the wrong case

1536
01:27:26,551 --> 01:27:28,967
and it went to the Supreme Court,

1537
01:27:29,036 --> 01:27:31,176
the worst thing that could
happen for Black Americans

1538
01:27:31,246 --> 01:27:33,040
across the country would be for
the Supreme Court

1539
01:27:33,109 --> 01:27:38,183
to ratify Plessy v. Ferguson...
to confirm it in a new age

1540
01:27:38,253 --> 01:27:40,634
and say, "Yes, this is still
the law of the land

1541
01:27:40,703 --> 01:27:42,395
and it satisfies the
constitution."

1542
01:27:42,464 --> 01:27:48,711
RICHARD GERGEL: What Judge Waring
was pushing him to do was very risky.

1543
01:27:48,780 --> 01:27:53,268
If you launched a concerted
effort to overturn Plessy

1544
01:27:53,337 --> 01:27:58,514
and failed, your years of all
that work would have been thrown

1545
01:27:58,583 --> 01:28:01,137
on the trash heap of history.

1546
01:28:01,206 --> 01:28:03,864
Thurgood Marshall says,
"Judge, it's on our agenda.

1547
01:28:03,933 --> 01:28:07,212
"It's just not tonight,
this is not the time.

1548
01:28:07,282 --> 01:28:09,284
This is not the place. ”

1549
01:28:09,353 --> 01:28:11,113
What he wasn't saying explicitly was,

1550
01:28:11,182 --> 01:28:13,046
this is the last place in
the world we're going to try

1551
01:28:13,115 --> 01:28:15,497
to desegregate the schools.

1552
01:28:15,566 --> 01:28:19,708
This is down the end of the
road, not the beginning.

1553
01:28:19,777 --> 01:28:23,228
Judge Waring said, "This is the time.

1554
01:28:23,298 --> 01:28:24,644
"This is the case.

1555
01:28:24,713 --> 01:28:27,854
"You're gonna be challenging
the constitutionality

1556
01:28:27,923 --> 01:28:29,304
"of a state law.

1557
01:28:29,373 --> 01:28:30,788
"You're going to lose,

1558
01:28:30,857 --> 01:28:34,895
but you'll plant the case
directly and automatically

1559
01:28:34,964 --> 01:28:37,139
"onto the docket of the U.S.
Supreme Court.

1560
01:28:37,208 --> 01:28:39,797
And he said, "Thurgood,
that's where you want to be."

1561
01:28:39,866 --> 01:28:42,247
[typewriter keys clacking]

1562
01:28:42,317 --> 01:28:45,009
NARRATOR: At Waring's
urging, Marshall petitioned the court

1563
01:28:45,078 --> 01:28:48,012
to dismiss the current case
and bring a new suit,

1564
01:28:48,081 --> 01:28:50,117
one alleging that segregation

1565
01:28:50,186 --> 01:28:54,363
in South Carolina's public
schools was unconstitutional.

1566
01:28:54,432 --> 01:28:59,644
Marshall and his team spent the
next month preparing to refile.

1567
01:28:59,713 --> 01:29:01,163
But they also needed approval

1568
01:29:01,232 --> 01:29:04,200
from the plaintiffs to move ahead.

1569
01:29:04,269 --> 01:29:06,996
IFILL: Marshall was always
very powerfully conscious

1570
01:29:07,065 --> 01:29:09,413
of the risks being taken by plaintiffs.

1571
01:29:09,482 --> 01:29:12,139
And if you knew anything about
Clarendon County in that period,

1572
01:29:12,208 --> 01:29:16,178
you knew that the Briggs
and others who stood up

1573
01:29:16,247 --> 01:29:19,284
to the system in that
jurisdiction were going

1574
01:29:19,354 --> 01:29:20,320
to have hell to pay.

1575
01:29:20,389 --> 01:29:23,530
[people chattering]

1576
01:29:23,599 --> 01:29:26,361
NARRATOR:
The week before Christmas, 1950,

1577
01:29:26,430 --> 01:29:29,640
dozens of parents, students,
and teachers filed into

1578
01:29:29,709 --> 01:29:32,470
St. Mark A.M.E. Church
in Summerton,

1579
01:29:32,539 --> 01:29:35,818
ready to hear an update on their
case from Robert Carter,

1580
01:29:35,887 --> 01:29:38,959
Marshall's key deputy.

1581
01:29:39,028 --> 01:29:41,617
RICHARD GERGEL: The
place was packed to the rafters.

1582
01:29:41,686 --> 01:29:44,171
Mr. Carter explained that

1583
01:29:44,240 --> 01:29:47,036
the N.A.A.C.P. thought it was
time to attack segregation,

1584
01:29:47,105 --> 01:29:48,831
root and branch,

1585
01:29:48,900 --> 01:29:51,593
but that anyone who was a
plaintiff in the case

1586
01:29:51,662 --> 01:29:55,010
needed to understand they could
experience severe retaliation.

1587
01:29:55,079 --> 01:29:58,151
He said, "Mr. Marshall
wants you to know that.

1588
01:29:58,220 --> 01:30:01,810
You can withdraw."

1589
01:30:01,879 --> 01:30:05,917
BRIGGS: That was made
clear to the petitioners...

1590
01:30:05,986 --> 01:30:08,679
if you think you're experiencing
retribution now,

1591
01:30:08,748 --> 01:30:11,095
if this case come from here,

1592
01:30:11,164 --> 01:30:14,132
there's gonna probably be more
reprisals that will come

1593
01:30:14,201 --> 01:30:15,651
and don't know what form it would take.

1594
01:30:17,584 --> 01:30:20,863
NARRATOR: This was no great
revelation to the Reverend DeLaine,

1595
01:30:20,932 --> 01:30:23,383
or to the Navy veteran Harry Briggs,

1596
01:30:23,452 --> 01:30:25,247
whose name was on the legal filing

1597
01:30:25,316 --> 01:30:28,146
simply because he was first up
in the alphabet.

1598
01:30:28,215 --> 01:30:30,286
Or to any of the other petitioners

1599
01:30:30,355 --> 01:30:33,600
who had signed onto the original lawsuit.

1600
01:30:33,669 --> 01:30:36,361
What Marshall had warned about
nearly two years earlier

1601
01:30:36,431 --> 01:30:38,018
had come to pass.

1602
01:30:38,087 --> 01:30:39,813
MAN [archival]:
<i>Did your husband sign this petition?</i>

1603
01:30:39,882 --> 01:30:41,125
Yes, he did sign the petition.

1604
01:30:41,194 --> 01:30:42,885
What happened to him after that?

1605
01:30:42,954 --> 01:30:45,888
Right after he signed the
petition, he told him that,

1606
01:30:45,957 --> 01:30:48,615
unless he take his name off it,
he would lose his job.

1607
01:30:48,684 --> 01:30:52,308
BRIGGS: On Christmas Eve,
they gave him a carton of cigarettes

1608
01:30:52,377 --> 01:30:55,208
and said we got somebody to replace you.

1609
01:30:55,277 --> 01:30:58,556
Then money dries up.

1610
01:30:58,625 --> 01:31:00,731
Couldn't get work.

1611
01:31:00,800 --> 01:31:03,630
He took a pseudonym to get paid.

1612
01:31:03,699 --> 01:31:06,737
Because they wasn't gonna hire
Harry Briggs in the county.

1613
01:31:06,806 --> 01:31:08,842
MAN:
What did you tell him?

1614
01:31:08,911 --> 01:31:11,224
Well, I told I him we was...
we only doing it

1615
01:31:11,293 --> 01:31:14,054
for the betterment of the children.

1616
01:31:14,123 --> 01:31:16,332
Mm-hmm. Not only our children,

1617
01:31:16,401 --> 01:31:18,093
but all of the children.

1618
01:31:19,715 --> 01:31:23,719
♪

1619
01:31:23,788 --> 01:31:25,928
DELAINE JR.:
There were a lot of evictions.

1620
01:31:28,206 --> 01:31:31,520
My father was threatened.

1621
01:31:31,589 --> 01:31:37,940
The Black men in town had formed
themselves into a cadre

1622
01:31:38,009 --> 01:31:41,254
guarding our house at night with guns.

1623
01:31:43,981 --> 01:31:46,224
RICHARD GERGEL: Reverend Delaine,
he had his home burned,

1624
01:31:46,293 --> 01:31:48,330
with volunteer firemen standing out front

1625
01:31:48,399 --> 01:31:51,471
refusing to provide service.

1626
01:31:51,540 --> 01:31:54,612
BRIGGS: They did that to send
a message, you know.

1627
01:31:54,681 --> 01:31:56,338
And when his house caught
on fire, we thought

1628
01:31:56,407 --> 01:31:57,822
ours would be next.

1629
01:31:57,891 --> 01:32:00,480
MACK: They have
children, they have families.

1630
01:32:00,549 --> 01:32:02,240
They have responsibilities,

1631
01:32:02,309 --> 01:32:04,415
and they have to think about all that.

1632
01:32:04,484 --> 01:32:07,660
You know, "If I lose my farm,
what happens next?

1633
01:32:07,729 --> 01:32:10,386
"Maybe, I'll be killed.

1634
01:32:10,455 --> 01:32:11,698
"And also, maybe,

1635
01:32:11,767 --> 01:32:13,079
"I'm also the breadwinner of my family.

1636
01:32:13,148 --> 01:32:14,287
"It's not just that I'm going
to be killed,

1637
01:32:14,356 --> 01:32:15,771
my family is going to be
destitute."

1638
01:32:17,704 --> 01:32:20,949
NARRATOR: Now here was Robert Carter,
who didn't have to stay behind

1639
01:32:21,018 --> 01:32:22,951
and live in Clarendon County...

1640
01:32:23,020 --> 01:32:27,265
asking these parents to be the
first wave of a frontal attack

1641
01:32:27,334 --> 01:32:29,820
on the most jagged ramparts
of segregation.

1642
01:32:32,305 --> 01:32:33,893
There was a pregnant silence

1643
01:32:33,962 --> 01:32:36,551
when Carter finished his presentation.

1644
01:32:36,620 --> 01:32:39,208
PATRICIA SULLIVAN: And then
an old man in the back of the church

1645
01:32:39,277 --> 01:32:42,867
raised his hand and he said, "We
wondered how long it would take

1646
01:32:42,936 --> 01:32:44,524
you lawyers to get there."

1647
01:32:44,593 --> 01:32:45,732
They were ready.

1648
01:32:45,801 --> 01:32:51,186
♪

1649
01:33:00,471 --> 01:33:02,680
BRIGGS: When you had
enough, you just had enough.

1650
01:33:02,749 --> 01:33:05,787
I mean, you just can't take it anymore.

1651
01:33:05,856 --> 01:33:08,755
Where can you go?
You can't back up.

1652
01:33:08,824 --> 01:33:10,723
You just can't, you gotta go forward.

1653
01:33:10,792 --> 01:33:12,172
And that was their mindset.

1654
01:33:16,418 --> 01:33:19,007
Not any of those families backed down.

1655
01:33:21,768 --> 01:33:25,289
IFILL: Clarendon County is
almost like the Isaac Woodard case.

1656
01:33:25,358 --> 01:33:28,948
The starkness of the facts,
the depth of the racism

1657
01:33:29,017 --> 01:33:31,985
goes to the very heart of the unfairness

1658
01:33:32,054 --> 01:33:34,367
and the ugliness of white supremacy.

1659
01:33:34,436 --> 01:33:36,334
And in that case for Marshall,

1660
01:33:36,403 --> 01:33:38,578
it's going right
into the eye of the storm.

1661
01:33:38,647 --> 01:33:40,891
♪

1662
01:33:40,960 --> 01:33:44,135
NARRATOR: Marshall didn't
expect to win Briggs v. Elliott

1663
01:33:44,204 --> 01:33:46,344
in the federal court of South Carolina.

1664
01:33:46,413 --> 01:33:50,555
But his team did need to build
a record of evidence,

1665
01:33:50,625 --> 01:33:53,248
one that would give the United
States Supreme Court

1666
01:33:53,317 --> 01:33:57,632
a solid rationale for ending
segregation in public schools...

1667
01:33:57,701 --> 01:34:02,153
and essentially burying its own
"separate but equal" precedent.

1668
01:34:03,638 --> 01:34:06,123
MACK:
Marshall has to show, well,

1669
01:34:06,192 --> 01:34:08,263
no matter what you did with resources,

1670
01:34:08,332 --> 01:34:10,679
just the mere fact of a statute

1671
01:34:10,748 --> 01:34:14,131
that requires segregation
is unconstitutional.

1672
01:34:14,200 --> 01:34:16,098
Why is it unconstitutional?

1673
01:34:16,167 --> 01:34:17,479
Well, for us, it would be easy.

1674
01:34:17,548 --> 01:34:19,308
This is just subordination
of Black people.

1675
01:34:19,377 --> 01:34:21,483
But for them, it was hard because

1676
01:34:21,552 --> 01:34:23,485
they didn't question it.

1677
01:34:23,554 --> 01:34:26,868
They weren't thinking that segregation

1678
01:34:26,937 --> 01:34:29,802
was harmful to Black people.

1679
01:34:29,871 --> 01:34:33,702
JAMES: He said, if you were
in an automobile accident,

1680
01:34:33,771 --> 01:34:36,740
I would have to show
how the accident injured you.

1681
01:34:36,809 --> 01:34:38,880
Here in this case,

1682
01:34:38,949 --> 01:34:44,057
he has to show how segregation
has injured his clients.

1683
01:34:44,126 --> 01:34:46,888
What harm has it caused?

1684
01:34:51,616 --> 01:34:54,861
Enter 37-year-old psychologist
Kenneth Clark

1685
01:34:54,930 --> 01:34:57,830
and his now-famous dolls.

1686
01:34:57,899 --> 01:35:00,764
♪

1687
01:35:00,833 --> 01:35:04,215
NARRATOR: Kenneth and Mamie
Clark... the first Black Americans

1688
01:35:04,284 --> 01:35:08,392
to earn PhDs in psychology
from Columbia University...

1689
01:35:08,461 --> 01:35:11,740
had recently begun conducting
a series of research experiments

1690
01:35:11,809 --> 01:35:16,434
to determine the effect of
segregation on Black children.

1691
01:35:16,503 --> 01:35:20,438
The tools of the Clarks'
experimental trade

1692
01:35:20,507 --> 01:35:24,235
were breathtakingly simple:

1693
01:35:24,304 --> 01:35:27,100
a suitcase full of dolls,

1694
01:35:27,169 --> 01:35:29,413
four of them gender neutral,

1695
01:35:29,482 --> 01:35:33,486
identical in every way except
for skin color.

1696
01:35:33,555 --> 01:35:38,146
Two were white, and two were brown.

1697
01:35:38,215 --> 01:35:41,356
Doctor Kenneth Clark explained
their extraordinary findings

1698
01:35:41,425 --> 01:35:43,772
to N.A.A.C.P. attorney
Robert Carter,

1699
01:35:43,841 --> 01:35:46,602
who lobbied his colleagues
to make the Clarks' research

1700
01:35:46,671 --> 01:35:50,296
central to their legal strategy.

1701
01:35:50,365 --> 01:35:52,091
JAMES: There's a great
deal of debate around the table

1702
01:35:52,160 --> 01:35:54,818
at Legal Defense headquarters
in New York City.

1703
01:35:54,887 --> 01:35:58,994
They are thinking, what are we
going to do with

1704
01:35:59,063 --> 01:36:02,101
what they call
"These damn dolls?"

1705
01:36:05,483 --> 01:36:09,004
Marshall sits at the end of the
table, says very little,

1706
01:36:09,073 --> 01:36:11,835
and just smokes, and smokes, and smokes,

1707
01:36:11,904 --> 01:36:13,768
as the attorneys hash it out, hash it out,

1708
01:36:13,837 --> 01:36:18,082
until finally Marshall says,
"I have to show injury.

1709
01:36:18,151 --> 01:36:19,394
"The dolls are how I'm going to show

1710
01:36:19,463 --> 01:36:22,293
"the injury to the children.

1711
01:36:22,362 --> 01:36:24,951
We're taking the dolls with us
to South Carolina."

1712
01:36:25,020 --> 01:36:28,403
♪

1713
01:36:28,472 --> 01:36:32,407
NARRATOR:
By daybreak on May 28, 1951,

1714
01:36:32,476 --> 01:36:37,688
a caravan of cars filled with
parents, teachers, and children

1715
01:36:37,757 --> 01:36:40,933
was well on its way from
Summerton to Charleston,

1716
01:36:41,002 --> 01:36:44,315
where they were finally going
to get their day in court.

1717
01:36:44,384 --> 01:36:47,353
As they pulled up to the
federal courthouse,

1718
01:36:47,422 --> 01:36:50,977
the citizens of Clarendon County
were awed to discover

1719
01:36:51,046 --> 01:36:54,636
they were not the only ones
who had made the journey.

1720
01:36:54,705 --> 01:36:56,914
[people chattering]

1721
01:36:56,983 --> 01:36:58,433
RICHARD GERGEL:
From across the state,

1722
01:36:58,502 --> 01:37:00,780
African Americans got up early
in the morning

1723
01:37:00,849 --> 01:37:03,679
and drove to Charleston.

1724
01:37:03,748 --> 01:37:05,612
And by the time the sun rose that morning,

1725
01:37:05,681 --> 01:37:10,169
they were lined up
as far as the eye could see.

1726
01:37:10,238 --> 01:37:12,930
BRIGGS: Out the
sidewalk, around the corner.

1727
01:37:12,999 --> 01:37:16,969
And these folks stood out there
in hot, hot May weather.

1728
01:37:17,038 --> 01:37:18,384
You ever been to South Carolina in May?

1729
01:37:18,453 --> 01:37:20,835
It is hot... sticky hot.

1730
01:37:20,904 --> 01:37:25,218
RICHARD GERGEL: Thurgood Marshall,
arriving that morning for the trial,

1731
01:37:25,287 --> 01:37:28,635
was amazed... he had never
seen such a crowd.

1732
01:37:28,704 --> 01:37:30,983
And he turned to Robert Carter

1733
01:37:31,052 --> 01:37:33,917
and said, "Bob, it's all over."

1734
01:37:33,986 --> 01:37:36,229
Carter, you know,
his young associate said,

1735
01:37:36,298 --> 01:37:38,645
"Thurgood, what are you talking
about?"

1736
01:37:38,714 --> 01:37:42,132
He said, "They're not scared
anymore."

1737
01:37:42,201 --> 01:37:46,412
IFILL: For Marshall to see
the throngs, the crowds,

1738
01:37:46,481 --> 01:37:48,586
coming out for the first day of trial

1739
01:37:48,655 --> 01:37:52,452
showed him that something had
shifted in the South.

1740
01:37:54,730 --> 01:37:58,907
They're not afraid anymore to
fight for their full citizenship

1741
01:37:58,976 --> 01:38:02,807
and to make the statement of
how important this is to them.

1742
01:38:07,433 --> 01:38:09,953
NARRATOR: With the
courtroom packed beyond capacity

1743
01:38:10,022 --> 01:38:13,749
that hot spring morning,
Marshall began arguing his case

1744
01:38:13,818 --> 01:38:16,476
before a panel of three federal judges,

1745
01:38:16,545 --> 01:38:19,859
one of whom was Judge Waties Waring.

1746
01:38:19,928 --> 01:38:22,448
He sparred with defense witnesses

1747
01:38:22,517 --> 01:38:24,899
from the school district
and presented his own

1748
01:38:24,968 --> 01:38:27,832
expert testimonies on the
egregious disparities

1749
01:38:27,902 --> 01:38:31,043
between the county's Black
and white schools.

1750
01:38:31,112 --> 01:38:34,322
Marshall did not stop there.

1751
01:38:34,391 --> 01:38:36,600
He proceeded to show the court
that the damage

1752
01:38:36,669 --> 01:38:38,705
to the Black children in Clarendon County

1753
01:38:38,774 --> 01:38:43,296
was real and quantifiable.

1754
01:38:43,365 --> 01:38:48,439
His key witness
took the stand that afternoon.

1755
01:38:48,508 --> 01:38:51,235
Dr. Kenneth Clark described
for the court

1756
01:38:51,304 --> 01:38:53,962
the doll experiments he and his
wife had conducted on hundreds

1757
01:38:54,031 --> 01:38:57,138
of Black schoolchildren across
the country,

1758
01:38:57,207 --> 01:38:59,243
asking them to evaluate and compare

1759
01:38:59,312 --> 01:39:02,281
the virtues of the black and white dolls.

1760
01:39:05,284 --> 01:39:07,907
JAMES: Kenneth and Mamie
Clark conduct these studies

1761
01:39:07,976 --> 01:39:11,083
over a period of months and it
traumatizes them

1762
01:39:11,152 --> 01:39:13,119
to have to do this over and over
again and get

1763
01:39:13,188 --> 01:39:15,915
the same answers over and over again

1764
01:39:15,984 --> 01:39:17,744
from different children,

1765
01:39:17,813 --> 01:39:19,436
attending different schools

1766
01:39:19,505 --> 01:39:21,921
in different states.

1767
01:39:21,990 --> 01:39:28,445
Without fail, the Black children
preferred the white doll.

1768
01:39:28,514 --> 01:39:33,726
♪

1769
01:39:41,630 --> 01:39:45,669
FREDERICKSON: Not only does the
N.A.A.C.P. have all of the information

1770
01:39:45,738 --> 01:39:49,431
it needs on the brick and mortar issues,

1771
01:39:49,500 --> 01:39:51,123
now they have evidence that said,

1772
01:39:51,192 --> 01:39:52,779
"Look, this is inherently damaging

1773
01:39:52,848 --> 01:39:55,230
"to Black children, right?

1774
01:39:55,299 --> 01:39:56,991
"And this is a stigma,
and this is a damage

1775
01:39:57,060 --> 01:39:58,993
from which they will
never recover."

1776
01:39:59,062 --> 01:40:04,205
[bell ringing]

1777
01:40:04,274 --> 01:40:10,349
NARRATOR: The trial was shorter
than anticipated... just two days.

1778
01:40:10,418 --> 01:40:14,767
Marshall had given it his best shot.

1779
01:40:14,836 --> 01:40:18,184
As he joined the throngs
streaming out of the courtroom,

1780
01:40:18,253 --> 01:40:21,015
the three judges retired
to Waring's chambers

1781
01:40:21,084 --> 01:40:22,740
to discuss the case.

1782
01:40:22,809 --> 01:40:27,159
The conference went just as expected.

1783
01:40:27,228 --> 01:40:29,678
Neither of the other two judges
had been persuaded

1784
01:40:29,747 --> 01:40:31,370
by Marshall's arguments.

1785
01:40:31,439 --> 01:40:36,444
Separate but equal
would stand in South Carolina.

1786
01:40:36,513 --> 01:40:41,725
♪

1787
01:40:41,794 --> 01:40:43,968
The Briggs plaintiffs had lost,

1788
01:40:44,038 --> 01:40:47,524
as Marshall suspected they would, 2-1.

1789
01:40:47,593 --> 01:40:49,181
But, as Waring had planned,

1790
01:40:49,250 --> 01:40:52,598
the appeal was headed straight
to the Supreme Court.

1791
01:40:52,667 --> 01:40:54,910
And he meant to arm
the N.A.A.C.P. attorneys

1792
01:40:54,979 --> 01:40:58,121
with something for the battle
in Washington:

1793
01:40:58,190 --> 01:41:02,573
a dissenting opinion for the ages.

1794
01:41:02,642 --> 01:41:05,335
RICHARD GERGEL: He
knew he was writing for history.

1795
01:41:05,404 --> 01:41:09,097
He knew this was his moment.

1796
01:41:09,166 --> 01:41:12,618
And he labored for days
carefully constructing

1797
01:41:12,687 --> 01:41:18,417
and rewriting and revising over
and over again this dissent.

1798
01:41:18,486 --> 01:41:22,697
He wrote it with care and with
precision and with passion.

1799
01:41:22,766 --> 01:41:26,218
MACK: Waring's dissent
is quite remarkable.

1800
01:41:28,392 --> 01:41:31,809
It's a direct indictment of segregation,

1801
01:41:31,878 --> 01:41:34,536
and it's important to say that

1802
01:41:34,605 --> 01:41:40,059
because so many people
were finessing the issue.

1803
01:41:40,128 --> 01:41:42,924
He described the testimony
of Dr. Clark

1804
01:41:42,993 --> 01:41:46,721
about the injury to Black
children, and he said,

1805
01:41:46,790 --> 01:41:49,413
"This must end, it must end now.

1806
01:41:51,519 --> 01:41:54,177
Segregation
is per se inequality."

1807
01:41:56,386 --> 01:41:59,561
NARRATOR: Waring set off the
last sentence in a separate paragraph,

1808
01:41:59,630 --> 01:42:01,874
for effect.

1809
01:42:01,943 --> 01:42:05,602
And it was, in a way, his final
word on the vicious regime

1810
01:42:05,671 --> 01:42:08,881
of legalized white supremacy
in the Deep South.

1811
01:42:10,848 --> 01:42:13,817
Soon after he filed his dissent in Briggs,

1812
01:42:13,886 --> 01:42:16,233
Waring wrote President Harry
Truman with the news

1813
01:42:16,302 --> 01:42:18,960
that he was stepping down from
his federal judgeship.

1814
01:42:21,963 --> 01:42:24,138
The Warings left Charleston for good,

1815
01:42:24,207 --> 01:42:27,210
retiring to a small apartment
in New York City.

1816
01:42:36,150 --> 01:42:38,531
Thurgood Marshall was
fundraising in Alabama

1817
01:42:38,600 --> 01:42:40,878
when word reached him
that the Supreme Court

1818
01:42:40,947 --> 01:42:43,398
had finally ruled on the constitutionality

1819
01:42:43,467 --> 01:42:46,608
of segregation in public schools.

1820
01:42:49,956 --> 01:42:53,960
It had been a long and frustrating wait;

1821
01:42:54,029 --> 01:42:57,171
three years since the trial in
Judge Waring's courtroom.

1822
01:42:57,240 --> 01:43:02,762
The name "Briggs"
had been subsumed by then.

1823
01:43:02,831 --> 01:43:06,490
The N.A.A.C.P. had brought four
similar desegregation cases,

1824
01:43:06,559 --> 01:43:10,391
in Virginia, Delaware,
the District of Columbia,

1825
01:43:10,460 --> 01:43:12,393
and Kansas.

1826
01:43:12,462 --> 01:43:15,327
The five cases had been
consolidated and filed

1827
01:43:15,396 --> 01:43:19,710
as Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas.

1828
01:43:22,299 --> 01:43:24,991
RICHARD GERGEL: Briggs was the
first case to arrive at the Supreme Court.

1829
01:43:25,060 --> 01:43:28,650
By all accounts it should have
been Briggs v. Elliott.

1830
01:43:28,719 --> 01:43:33,379
My personal theory is that the
court did not want this case

1831
01:43:33,448 --> 01:43:40,041
banning school segregation to be
focused on a Southern case.

1832
01:43:40,110 --> 01:43:43,044
Topeka, Kansas, was not in the South.

1833
01:43:43,113 --> 01:43:45,633
And the South would claim
it was being picked on.

1834
01:43:45,702 --> 01:43:48,429
But how do you say that if the
lead defendant

1835
01:43:48,498 --> 01:43:50,672
is Topeka, Kansas?

1836
01:43:50,741 --> 01:43:55,194
♪

1837
01:43:55,263 --> 01:44:00,751
REPORTER [archival]: The Supreme Court has
rendered a momentous and historic decision

1838
01:44:00,820 --> 01:44:06,723
saying that education should
be equal in this free America.

1839
01:44:06,792 --> 01:44:09,795
THURGOOD MARSHALL: The
fact it was a unanimous decision

1840
01:44:09,864 --> 01:44:12,970
should set for rest once and for all

1841
01:44:13,039 --> 01:44:15,559
the problem as to whether or not

1842
01:44:15,628 --> 01:44:19,149
second class citizenship, segregation,

1843
01:44:19,218 --> 01:44:22,290
could be consistent any longer
with the law of the country.

1844
01:44:22,359 --> 01:44:25,569
♪

1845
01:44:44,830 --> 01:44:47,211
♪

1846
01:44:47,281 --> 01:44:50,387
MACK: Marshall and the
N.A.A.C.P. had certainly been hopeful.

1847
01:44:50,456 --> 01:44:53,321
I don't think there was
any reason for them

1848
01:44:53,390 --> 01:44:56,635
to expect it to be unanimous.

1849
01:44:56,704 --> 01:44:58,568
That must have been a surprise.

1850
01:44:58,637 --> 01:45:05,091
JAMES: The decision is written
in a manner and at a length

1851
01:45:05,160 --> 01:45:09,613
such that it could be printed in
every newspaper in the country.

1852
01:45:09,682 --> 01:45:14,894
♪

1853
01:45:14,963 --> 01:45:17,552
So that it could be read and understood

1854
01:45:17,621 --> 01:45:22,454
by any literate person in the
United States.

1855
01:45:22,523 --> 01:45:24,525
So that it could be read to someone

1856
01:45:24,594 --> 01:45:26,734
who might not be able to read
him or herself,

1857
01:45:26,803 --> 01:45:29,323
and that person would be able
to understand

1858
01:45:29,392 --> 01:45:33,810
why and how the justices
had reached this conclusion.

1859
01:45:36,157 --> 01:45:39,263
NARRATOR: Citing evidence
from the Clark's doll studies,

1860
01:45:39,333 --> 01:45:41,611
Chief Justice Earl Warren was explicit

1861
01:45:41,680 --> 01:45:44,372
about the very real damage
suffered by children

1862
01:45:44,441 --> 01:45:46,892
segregated by race.

1863
01:45:46,961 --> 01:45:50,240
"Any language in
Plessy v. Ferguson contrary

1864
01:45:50,309 --> 01:45:55,901
to this finding," he wrote,
"is rejected."

1865
01:45:55,970 --> 01:45:59,767
But Warren steered clear of any
mention of Waties Waring,

1866
01:45:59,836 --> 01:46:02,873
who had been the only federal
judge in the five cases

1867
01:46:02,942 --> 01:46:04,737
to file a dissent arguing

1868
01:46:04,806 --> 01:46:09,190
that segregation itself
was unconstitutional.

1869
01:46:09,259 --> 01:46:10,812
RICHARD GERGEL: You got
to remember at this time Judge Waring

1870
01:46:10,881 --> 01:46:12,780
is a very polarizing figure.

1871
01:46:12,849 --> 01:46:16,059
He's probably the most reviled
white man in the South

1872
01:46:16,128 --> 01:46:18,510
among white Southerners.

1873
01:46:18,579 --> 01:46:21,167
The court didn't make his dissent

1874
01:46:21,236 --> 01:46:23,066
the basis of their decision.

1875
01:46:23,135 --> 01:46:25,965
But it is obvious when you read it,

1876
01:46:26,034 --> 01:46:28,382
it is Judge Waring's language.

1877
01:46:30,453 --> 01:46:32,040
[cars honking]

1878
01:46:32,109 --> 01:46:34,146
NARRATOR:
Back in New York City,

1879
01:46:34,215 --> 01:46:36,217
Walter White and other luminaries

1880
01:46:36,286 --> 01:46:39,047
from New York's civil rights
community gathered

1881
01:46:39,116 --> 01:46:40,739
in the Warings' parlor to toast

1882
01:46:40,808 --> 01:46:43,914
the historic milestone
and the final triumph

1883
01:46:43,983 --> 01:46:46,192
of Judge Waring's judicial strategy.

1884
01:46:49,713 --> 01:46:52,854
A few miles away,
Thurgood Marshall and his team

1885
01:46:52,923 --> 01:46:54,994
held their own victory party,

1886
01:46:55,063 --> 01:46:58,895
allowing themselves only
the briefest of revelries.

1887
01:46:58,964 --> 01:47:02,933
For Marshall, the Brown
ruling did not mark the end

1888
01:47:03,002 --> 01:47:07,973
of a hard-fought battle,
but the beginning of a new one.

1889
01:47:08,042 --> 01:47:09,492
♪

1890
01:47:09,561 --> 01:47:11,770
IFILL: Everyone was
celebrating in the office

1891
01:47:11,839 --> 01:47:13,737
and Marshall said "You're all
a bunch of fools," you know,

1892
01:47:13,806 --> 01:47:14,773
"We have a lot more work ahead, okay?

1893
01:47:14,842 --> 01:47:16,119
We have to get back to work."

1894
01:47:16,188 --> 01:47:19,260
He understood what was to come.

1895
01:47:19,329 --> 01:47:23,091
As a leader, you can barely
experience excitement

1896
01:47:23,160 --> 01:47:24,748
without looking around the
corner for whatever

1897
01:47:24,817 --> 01:47:27,682
is the next challenge
or work that has to be done.

1898
01:47:38,037 --> 01:47:39,660
ROBERT HOOKS:
Hello, welcome to "Like It Is."

1899
01:47:39,729 --> 01:47:42,283
Today's edition features
a look back in time

1900
01:47:42,352 --> 01:47:44,596
into the tragedy of Isaac Woodard,

1901
01:47:44,665 --> 01:47:47,012
a man whose confrontation with
Southern racism

1902
01:47:47,081 --> 01:47:49,048
came to symbolize the brutality in America

1903
01:47:49,117 --> 01:47:50,809
at the end of World War II.

1904
01:47:50,878 --> 01:47:56,987
NARRATOR: Nearly 40 years
after his blinding, Isaac Woodard agreed

1905
01:47:57,056 --> 01:47:59,162
to revisit the details of his ordeal

1906
01:47:59,231 --> 01:48:01,302
with a local television journalist.

1907
01:48:01,371 --> 01:48:03,511
Do you think back towards those days,

1908
01:48:03,580 --> 01:48:05,375
to have something like this happen to you

1909
01:48:05,444 --> 01:48:07,204
while you're still in uniform?

1910
01:48:07,273 --> 01:48:09,793
A lot of people ask me,
was I bitter with, you know,

1911
01:48:09,862 --> 01:48:11,415
with the world, with everybody?

1912
01:48:11,485 --> 01:48:13,659
I told them, no, I wasn't.
I wasn't because...

1913
01:48:13,728 --> 01:48:15,937
I said, well, everybody
ain't bad, you know,

1914
01:48:16,006 --> 01:48:17,905
that I know.

1915
01:48:17,974 --> 01:48:19,389
And the one that I'm really
bitter against,

1916
01:48:19,458 --> 01:48:22,737
the one that really did it to me.

1917
01:48:22,806 --> 01:48:24,221
He never served a day... No, no, no.

1918
01:48:24,290 --> 01:48:26,016
Kept his job. Right, right.

1919
01:48:26,085 --> 01:48:28,640
Kept his job, they didn't even
take him off the force,

1920
01:48:28,709 --> 01:48:29,779
you know?

1921
01:48:29,848 --> 01:48:31,366
ROBERT YOUNG:
For the first few years,

1922
01:48:31,435 --> 01:48:34,059
he called them names
I couldn't even mention.

1923
01:48:34,128 --> 01:48:37,683
[chuckles]
But, uh, he grew out of it.

1924
01:48:37,752 --> 01:48:40,686
♪

1925
01:48:40,755 --> 01:48:43,171
LAURA WILLIAMS: I saw the
part of him after the bitterness,

1926
01:48:43,240 --> 01:48:46,485
and the anger, and the frustration.

1927
01:48:46,554 --> 01:48:51,110
Most of the time I saw him,
he was smiling.

1928
01:48:51,179 --> 01:48:53,665
He was so well-dressed.

1929
01:48:53,734 --> 01:48:55,977
There was a tie clip on the tie,

1930
01:48:56,046 --> 01:48:57,254
and you could tell the way he walked,

1931
01:48:57,323 --> 01:48:58,877
he was proud of who he was.

1932
01:49:00,879 --> 01:49:05,711
NARRATOR: In 1962, the U.S.
Army finally granted Sergeant Woodard

1933
01:49:05,780 --> 01:49:08,334
the disability benefits
they had denied him

1934
01:49:08,403 --> 01:49:12,649
in the years following his blinding.

1935
01:49:12,718 --> 01:49:14,755
Eventually, he was able to buy

1936
01:49:14,824 --> 01:49:16,515
several properties throughout the Bronx

1937
01:49:16,584 --> 01:49:21,796
and provide a comfortable life
for himself and his family.

1938
01:49:21,865 --> 01:49:24,799
HOOKS: What do you think
that people should learn about,

1939
01:49:24,868 --> 01:49:26,387
what's happened to Isaac Woodard,

1940
01:49:26,456 --> 01:49:30,529
what lesson is there about America?

1941
01:49:30,598 --> 01:49:33,636
Well, I mean, the way I feel
about it, you know,

1942
01:49:33,705 --> 01:49:37,950
that people should learn how
to live with one another,

1943
01:49:38,019 --> 01:49:39,400
and how to treat one another.

1944
01:49:39,469 --> 01:49:41,816
Because after all, we all are,
we're human beings,

1945
01:49:41,885 --> 01:49:43,991
regardless of color.

1946
01:49:44,060 --> 01:49:46,200
Everybody should, you know, have
some sympathy for one another,

1947
01:49:46,269 --> 01:49:47,511
you know?

1948
01:49:47,581 --> 01:49:49,479
And don't do cruel things to one another

1949
01:49:49,548 --> 01:49:51,550
that you don't wanna be did to you.

1950
01:49:51,619 --> 01:49:53,517
That's the way I feel about it.

1951
01:49:55,036 --> 01:50:00,455
NARRATOR: Isaac Woodard
died in 1992, at age 73,

1952
01:50:00,524 --> 01:50:03,355
entirely unaware that his simple request

1953
01:50:03,424 --> 01:50:08,325
to be treated like a man, and
the injustice that followed it,

1954
01:50:08,394 --> 01:50:10,293
had emboldened a federal judge

1955
01:50:10,362 --> 01:50:12,882
and the president of the United States

1956
01:50:12,951 --> 01:50:17,127
to pursue the destruction
of legalized segregation.

1957
01:50:20,614 --> 01:50:23,617
♪

1958
01:50:29,381 --> 01:50:35,559
FREDERICKSON: Historians
like to talk in terms of grand narratives.

1959
01:50:38,735 --> 01:50:41,842
But when you look closely,
you find often it is

1960
01:50:41,911 --> 01:50:46,432
a single person taking a certain action.

1961
01:50:46,501 --> 01:50:50,644
It's not often sufficient
to cause grand change,

1962
01:50:50,713 --> 01:50:52,024
but it is a spark.

1963
01:50:53,957 --> 01:50:57,754
IFILL: Every fundamental shift
in this country has required the courage

1964
01:50:57,823 --> 01:51:02,448
of ordinary people to demand
that they be respected,

1965
01:51:02,517 --> 01:51:05,555
exceptional human beings
who were willing to put

1966
01:51:05,624 --> 01:51:08,040
their lives on the line.

1967
01:51:08,109 --> 01:51:10,940
The ways in which they changed
this country

1968
01:51:11,009 --> 01:51:13,943
we accept almost like air,

1969
01:51:14,012 --> 01:51:16,566
without ever giving a moment's thought

1970
01:51:16,635 --> 01:51:19,465
to the individuals who
sacrificed themselves for it.

1971
01:51:19,534 --> 01:51:24,470
You don't know what the effect
of your speaking up

1972
01:51:24,539 --> 01:51:28,474
and using your voice will be.

1973
01:51:28,543 --> 01:51:32,375
It may even look like it was nominal.

1974
01:51:32,444 --> 01:51:35,896
But in the long course of history,

1975
01:51:35,965 --> 01:51:40,038
can be earth-shattering,
and powerful and important.

1976
01:51:49,944 --> 01:51:54,086
♪

1977
01:52:08,687 --> 01:52:12,967
♪

1978
01:52:36,750 --> 01:52:42,031
♪