The attack that left returning WWII veteran Isaac Woodard, Jr. blind
The attack that left returning WWII veteran Isaac Woodard, Jr. blind became a turning point in the integration of the United States armed forces. Now, Woodard’s great-niece, Laura Willams, hopes to share his story with a younger generation. She’s penned a new children’s book, “I Am Sergeant Isaac Woodard, Jr.: How My Story Changed America.” “His blindness allowed us to see,” Williams told Inside Edition Digital.
VIDEO | Laura Williams, Inside Edition, Youtube – 2/27/2021
The President’s Committee on Civil Rights: TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS
The President’s Committee on Civil Rights was a United States presidential commission established by President Harry Truman in 1946. *^The committee was created by Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946, and instructed to investigate the status of civil rights in the country and propose measures to strengthen and protect them. The committee submitted the report of its findings, entitled To Secure These Rights, to President Truman in December 1947, and Truman proposed comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress, and ordered antidiscrimination and desegregation throughout the government and armed forces.
The committee included business, labor, and religious leaders, in addition to scholars.
The committee was charged with examining the condition of civil rights in the United States, producing a written report of their findings, and submitting recommendations on improving civil rights in the United States. In December 1947, the committee produced a 178-page report entitled To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. In the report, it proposed to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission, Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights, and a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice; to develop federal protection from lynching; a permanent fair employment practice commission; to abolish poll taxes; and urged other measures. Furthermore, the report raised the distinct possibility that the UN Charter from 1945 could also be used as a source of law to fight persistent racial discrimination in the US.
On July 26, 1948, President Truman advanced the recommendations of the report by signing Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981. Executive Order 9980 ordered the desegregation of the federal work force and Executive Order 9981 ordered the desegregation of the armed services. He also sent a special message to Congress on February 2, 1948, to implement the recommendations of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights.
The President’s Committee on Civil Rights report also paved way for African-American diplomats to break into previously white-dominated positions. Under President Truman, Edward R. Dudley would become the first African American given an ambassadorship, in part due to the findings of race-relations from the committee. However, these moves were largely done due to a harming of foreign relations due to the United States’ race problem. Even with the committee’s findings, President Truman had trouble acting on his own research, due to domestic backlash.
*^ President Harry Truman was known to have the prejudices of White America when it came to views of race. He used racial slurs, told racist jokes, opposed sit-ins and intermarriage and called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a troublemaker. Factors prompting the Committee on Civil Rights were the domestic challenge of persistent racial violence and discrimination against African Americans, particularly Black veterans, [see VIDEO below] and the global challenge of the emerging Cold War.
An Unsolved Case of Racial Terror: FBI Probes 1946 Moore’s Ford Bridge Lynching in Georgia
It was July 25, 1946, when a white mob in rural Georgia ambushed a car carrying two African-American couples, dragged them out and shot them to death. One of the men, George Dorsey, was a military veteran who had recently returned from serving five years overseas in World War II. His wife, Mae Murray Dorsey, was also killed. Dorothy Malcom, the other woman in the car, was seven months pregnant. The mob cut her open and removed her unborn child. Her husband, Roger Malcom, had just been bailed out of jail after he was accused of stabbing a white man. A coroner estimated people in the crowd fired more than 60 shots at the two couples, at close range. The horrific attack was carried out near Walton County, Georgia, not far from Moore’s Ford Bridge. It became known as the Moore’s Ford lynching, and sparked a national outcry, prompting President Harry Truman to push for civil rights reform. https://youtu.be/hqNs6xveUJM?si=oxNcRgjm7YUDEv1Z Democracy Now! | Youtube – 2/20/2015
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