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

Hello my lovely readers!

This was a book I randomly found while perusing my local library. I'm so glad I found it. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
On February 12, 1946, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, a returning, decorated African American veteran, was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, after he challenged the bus driver's disrespectful treatment of him. Woodard, in uniform, was arrested by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and beaten and blinded while in custody.

President Harry Truman was outraged by the incident. He established the first presidential commission on civil rights and his Justice Department filed criminal charges against Shull. In July 1948, following his commission's recommendation, Truman ordered an end to segregation in the U.S. armed forces. An all-white South Carolina jury acquitted Shull, but the presiding judge, J. Waties Waring, was conscience-stricken by the failure of the court system to do justice by the soldier. Waring described the trial as his "baptism of fire," and began issuing major civil rights decisions from his Charleston courtroom, including his 1951 dissent in Briggs v. Elliott declaring public school segregation per se unconstitutional. Three years later, the Supreme Court adopted Waring's language and reasoning in Brown v. Board of Education.
MY THOUGHTS
Another fantastic nonfiction read about Black American history. I gained a new respect for Truman and appreciated that he and Waring realized they were wrong in their thought process about Black Americans, changed course on it and worked to ensure that equality was granted, no matter the response from everyone around them.

I knew about the Woodard case as it was mentioned in other books I've read regarding civil rights, but I didn't know there was a full book about it, so it was a pleasant surprise that I found this while perusing my library last week. It's a shame that he was pretty much forgotten after this all happened. I understand that life goes on, but come on...this was a big deal! 

I found some more books about civil rights, riots and massacres that occurred during the early 20th century in the U.S. that I'm looking forward to reading soon! I'm definitely in a Black American history phase right now.