Racist Army Prosecution Forces Jackie Robinson To Change Careers To Baseball

 

July 6, 1844, before becoming a legendary figure in the Civil Rights Movement for breaking the color barrier in baseball Jackie Robinson was acting with his conscious.

In 1944, a 25-year-old Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, while stationed at Camp Hood, TX. He had been through Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a 2^nd lieutenant. On the night of July 6^th Robinson had been relaxing at the Black Officer’s Club and had gotten on the bus to go back to the central command of the base.

When he boarded the bus, he saw the wife of another officer on the front of the bus and sat down beside her. When this happened, Southwestern Bus Company driver Milton Reneger ordered him to the back of the bus.

Robinson refused, and he was by law entitled to his refusal because the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated busses. However, this wasn’t unexpected, there were so few Black officers in the military at the time and that combined with a general prevalence of White racism allowed White soldiers to feel they could ignore orders and treat Black officers, and soldiers, with the disdain and outright prejudice they would as civilians.

After Robinson refused to move. The driver decided not to fight with Robinson but was sullen and rude the rest of the drive. Part of Robinson’s refusal was based on previous bus incidents at Hood and other military bases regarding what blacks saw as a pattern of unfairness.

At the bus station, the bus driver jumped off the bus and ran away, he returned with a crowd accusing Robinson of mistreatment. Many Whites had gathered, both military and civilian, and they were angry when the MPs showed up. The MPs might have saved Robinson’s life given they were in Texas and Judge Lynch often ruled.

While he out-ranked the MPs Robinson did agree to go with them to police headquarters to straighten things out. In Robinson’s own recollection, two things happened then to make things more perilous. First, an older White woman said that she heard the bus driver tell Robinson to move the rear of the bus, and because she felt threatened, she was pressing charges. Robinson told her he didn’t care what she did. Also, another MP ran up to the crowd and loudly yelled, “Did we get that nigger lieutenant?” This angered Robinson and he yelled out that the next person he heard using that world he would break them in half.

Inside the assistant provost marshal and the officer of the day were already questioning others who identified themselves as witnesses. This and the unusually large crowd that were trying to intimidate him Robinson decided he was not going to get fair treatment; however, he would act with respect.

He was taken to his quarters at McCloskey Hospital and placed under armed guard after he was notified that he was being court-martialed for disregarding an order of a superior officer, sloppy and contentious behavior, and disrespect towards a superior officer.

Robinson attempted to use the resources he was aware of to defend himself. He wrote the NAACP and the War Department. His letters to Truman Gibson, the Secretary of War's civilian aide outlined the racism he was facing at Camp Hood and asked for advice. Gibson had been instrumental in getting Robinson and others promoted through the officers’ training at Fort Reilly, Kansas.

Gibson advised Robinson not to take things to the press and allow affairs to take course as there were men ranked higher interested in Robinson who had nothing to do with Camp Hood watching the case. This included his former commanding officer with the 761^st Tank Battalion, Lt. Col. Paul Bates. Bates was working with Robinson and the McCloskey Medical staff to see if Robinson was eligible to sign a waiver for a badly damaged ankle. Bates believed that Robinson was an excellent officer and that his interactions with the men would be good for morale in Europe.

The trial began on Aug 2. Robinson had an excellent attorney and pressure from higher-ups who did not want the bad press. Robinson himself was also a remarkable witness with his poise and unchanging story. Military brass was already struggling with embarrassing discriminatory incidents occurring all too frequently in Southern states and did not want the negative press of this trial.

Army-appointed defense attorney, Capt. William A. Cline, a white Texan, showed all the inconsistencies in prosecution witnesses' accounts during the hearings. The case collapsed and Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers.

While he was a great athlete Robinson had wanted a military career and was willing to sign a waiver releasing the Army from responsibility for injury caused by a bad ankle and bone spurs. It was not to be after the trail Robinson was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honorable discharge in November 1944.

The Blinding of Sargent Isaac Woodard And The Concious Of President Harry Truman

 

Feb. 12, 1946, Sargent Isaac Woodard boarded a Greyhound bus in Augusta, Georgia headed for his home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was excited as he had just been discharged from the Army after serving in the Pacific during World War Two. Sargent Woodward had been given an honorable discharge; he was a decorated veteran of the war.

When the bus stopped again in North Augusta on the South Carolina side of the city Sargent Woodward asked the driver, Alton C. Blackwell, if he had time to use the restroom. The driver insulted him but allowed him time; “Talk to me like I am talking to you,” Sargent Woodward told him in response, adding: “I am a man just like you.”

Sargent Woodward returned to his seat and was unaware of Blackwell having contacted the police in the city of Batesburg, South Carolina. When the bus stopped in Batesburg police chief Lynwood Shull and officer Elliot Long came on the bus to remove Sargent Woodward whom the driver had reported as being drunk and disorderly.

The police took Sargent Woodward into an alley next to the station and preceded to beat him severely. They then took him to the police station and charged him with being drunk and disorderly and then left him in his cell. They at no point attempted to get him medical care, although he complained of great pain.

The next morning Sargent Woodward appeared in court and was convicted of the charges and fined $50, at this time he again requested medical care. It took another two days before he was seen by a doctor. Not knowing where he was and still experiencing amnesia, Woodard ended up in a hospital in Aiken, South Carolina but he was receiving substandard medical care since he was Black. Three weeks after he was reported missing by his relatives, Woodard was discovered in the hospital at Aiken. He was immediately rushed to an Army hospital in Columbia.

Finally receiving care his memory began to return his vision did not his eyes had been gouged by both fingers and a police nightstick as well as multiple contusions and possible Intracranial hematoma. The damage was at this point permanent there was no way for them to restore his vision.

Although it was not reported very much initially, news of the assault slowly began spreading across the nation and people were outraged that this happened to a veteran. The NAACP worked hard to make Sargent Woodard’s case a national referendum on civil rights. Orson Welles took up the case on his national ABC radio show. Welles criticized the lack of action by the South Carolina government as intolerable and shameful. Woodard was the focus of Welles's four subsequent broadcasts. The NAACP felt that these broadcasts did more than anything else to prompt the Justice Department to act on the case.

In August of 1946 the NAACP held a benefit for Sargent Woodward and his family at Harlem’s now-defunct Lewisohn Stadium, the show was headlined by Billie Holiday and boxer Joe Louis. Folk singer Woody Guthrie performed a song he wrote, “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard” the benefit concert drew a crowd of 20,000 and raised $10,000 for Sargent Woodard and his family.

Also, in August NAACP leader Walter White met with President Harry S. Truman and asked for the Department of Justice to look into the case. Truman had only heard a few things about the case but when White gave him a detailed account of the attack. Truman reportedly exploded in rage, “My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We’ve got to do something!” He immediately ordered Attorney General Tom C. Clark to investigate why the state of South Carolina had not done anything.

The DOJ did a short investigation and then indicted Lynwood Shull and several of his officers. The bus stop was at Camp Gordon and Sargent Woodward was in uniform so it was a federal crime.

What followed was by all standards a travesty of justice. Claude Sapp, the local U.S. Attorney charged with handling the case, failed to interview anyone except the bus driver, in fact, other veterans who witnessed the argument with the bus driver and had signed affidavits were never called as witnesses and their statements were not introduced as evidence. Sapp only called upon. The defense was as unprofessional with Shull’s lawyer using racial epitaphs, “The way he spoke is not how a sober nigger speaks in the south.” He called Shull himself as a witness and the bus driver Blackwell. Both insisted Sargent Woodward  was drunk and threatening; Shull said he drove Sargent Woodward  to the Veteran’s hospital himself  once it was clear he was wounded, this was perjury. He added that a conviction of Shull would be equal to South Carolina once again seceding from the union.

After the cases wrapped up Judge Julius Waring gave instructions to the all-white jury to review all evidence and do their due diligence as a jury, they took 15 minutes to do so and ruled Shull, Elliot Long, and other officers innocent. Waring was visibly upset with the verdict.

Truman was so moved by the entire case and its outcome that he signed executive order 9808 that established the Civil Rights Commission by; a fifteen-member, interracial group, including the President of General Electric, Charles E. Wilson; academics such as John Sloan Dickey from Dartmouth College; and Sadie Tanner Alexander, a black attorney for the city of Philadelphia, as well as other activists.

In a 1947 speech, the President said that civil rights were a moral priority, and it was his priority for the federal government. He had seen by Woodard's and other cases that the issue could not be left to state and local governments. He said: “It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans—I mean all Americans.”

On February 2, 1948, Truman sent the first comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress. It had incorporated many of the thirty-five recommendations of his commission. In July 1948, over the objection of senior military officers, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, banning racial discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces, and Executive Order 9980 to integrate the federal government. (Facilities had been segregated under President Woodrow Wilson). This was in response to a number of incidents against black veterans, most notably the Woodard case. The armed forces and federal agencies led the way in the United States for the integration of the workplace, public facilities, and schools. Over the decades, the decision meant that both institutions benefited from the contributions of minorities.

Sargent Woodard moved to New York City after the trial and was active to some extent in the Civil Rights movement. He died in a VA hospital in the Bronx in 1992.

 

 

Sources:

Woody Guthrie’s Song “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A7A5VGjSFk

 

https://time.com/5950641/blinding-isaac-woodard/

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/woodward-isaac-beating-of/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/woodard-isaac-1919-1992/

Egerton, John. Speak Now Against the Day, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Gergel, Richard. Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring, FSG, 2019.