The Blinding of Isaac Woodard (2021)
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
Director: Jamila Ephron
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/blinding-isaac-woodard/
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André Holland as Narrator (voice) |
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Leland Gantt as Isaac Woodward (voice) |
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Kenneth Mack as Self |
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Sherrilyn Ifill as Self |
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Rawn James as Self |
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Richard Gergel as Self |
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Belinda Gergel as Self |
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Robert Young Sr. as Self |
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Patricia Sullivan as Self |
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Laura Williams as Self |
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Gilbert King as Self |
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Kari Frederickson as Self |
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J. A. De Laine Jr. as Self |
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Nathanial Briggs as Self |
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Harry S. Truman as Self (archive footage) |
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Orson Welles as Self (archive footage) |
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Isaac Woodard as Self (archive footage) |
| Production | Caitlin Riggsbee | Associate Producer |
| Editing | Nancy Novack | Editor |
| Camera | Stephen McCarthy | Director of Photography |
| Writing | Richard Gergel | Book |
| Writing | Jamila Ephron | Writer |
| Production | Susan Bellows | Executive Producer |
| Directing | Jamila Ephron | Director |
| Production | Cameo George | Executive Producer |
| Writing | Mark Zwonitzer | Writer |
| Production | Jamila Ephron | Producer |
| Editing | Kirstin E. McNary | Assistant Editor |
| Sound | Joel Goodman | Original Music Composer |
