The Affidavit of Isaac Woodard

[Terry]

Here's the other great triumph/scandal of Welles' radio career.

Apparently the news had hit some newspapers a few weeks previously, but it seems to have been Welles who forced it into the national discourse, resulting in the criminal prosecution of Officer X (it must be noted that Chief Shull was aquitted by the jury.)

Since Woodard's account listed the incident as happening in the town of Aiken, so did Welles. That announcement would lead to Welles being sued, hung in effigy, having the film Tomorrow Is Forever (according to Callow) or The Stranger (according to Rosenbaum) banned in Aiken, ABC cancelling his show (Orson Welles Commentaries,) and no network in the United States ever offering him another.

http://www.box.net/shared/nep8qsutrf

[RayKelly]

In bookstores today: UNEXAMPLED COURAGE: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring by Richard Gergel.
The book includes Orson Welles' media campaign to obtain justice for Woodard.
(Thanks Tom Moore for the tip)

[NoFake]

For those who may be relatively new to Wellesnet:

http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-sought-justice-for-isaac-woodard-70-years-ago/

[NoFake]

What would Welles say today, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd -- just the latest in an apparently endless stream of such hideous (and, even worse, all too often unpunished) crimes? What would be the reaction today to his impassioned, uncompromising call for justice?

[Wich2]

He would say the same things he said in the same circumstances then.

And, as then, those on one side would salute his wisdom and humanity; and those on the other side, would tar him as a Bleeding Heart or a Commie.

- Craig

[Wellesnet]

Here's what Welles did say during WWII:

"The way our fighting brothers and sisters look at it, some of them dying as you read this—the way they look at it, we're lucky. And they're right. We're lucky to be alive, but only if our lives make life itself worth dying for. We must be worthy of our luck or we are damned. Our lives are spared, but this is merely the silliest of accidents unless we put the gift of life to the hard employments of justice. If we waste that gift we won't have anywhere to hide from the indignation of history."

"Race Hate isn't human nature. Race hate is the abandonment of human nature." - Race Hate Must be Outlawed

[Wellesnet]

Touch of Evil-

Quinlan:
"Our friend Vargas has some very special ideas about police procedures. He seems to think it don't matter whether the killer's hanged or not, as long as we obey the fine print in the rulebook."

Vargas:
"Captain, I don't think a policeman should work like a dog catcher."

Quinlan:
"No?"

Vargas:
"Putting criminals behind bars, no! In any free country, a policeman is supposed to enforce the law and the law protects the guilty as well as the innocent."

Quinlan:
"Our job is tough enough."

Vargas:
"It's supposed to be tough! It has to be tough. A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point, Captain: who's the boss, the cop or the law?"

[tonyw]

Maybe, Vargas's final line should not be changed to "The President, or the law".

[NoFake]

Would that Welles were here.

From The Hill:

"House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress, said Monday that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) 'ought to be ashamed of himself' after penning a controversial op-ed in The New York Times calling for the U.S. military to put down rioting in American cities sparked by the death of George Floyd."

. . .

"Clyburn challenged Cotton to read 'Unexampled Courage,' a 2019 book about Isaac Woodard, a black World War II veteran who was brutally assaulted and blinded by South Carolina police officers hours after he was honorably discharged in 1946.

“ 'He was taken off a bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, by a deputy sheriff; he was in his uniform. And that deputy sheriff took his billy stick and punched his eyes out,' Clyburn said. 'And that has been the foundation upon which law enforcement in many parts of this country have been established.' ”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/501665-clyburn-tom-cotton-should-be-ashamed-of-himself

[tonyw]

He would soon relocate to Europe again were he with us as he did when HUAC loomed,

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... terrifying

[NoFake]

Alas, I fear that he would find cold comfort there:

https://truthout.org/articles/five-forces-driving-the-rise-of-fascism-in-2019/

[tonyw]

You also have to remember that similar problems occurred in the post-war era: Operation Paperclip, the recruitment of Nazi War criminals in Germany, the resentment against "displaced persons", and those surviving the camps, anti-semitism etc. Maybe he would not be welcome in present day Hungary and Poland but Europe does offer more places for cultural sanctuary than the USA. Also, there is the widespread presence of European demonstrations against the murder of Floyd and dismantling of slaver statues. So there are pluses as well as minuses.

[Wellesnet]

Updated version of the 2016 post referenced by NoFake above:
https://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles- ... 8mDOfJK1BE

Seven decades before Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets over police brutality, Orson Welles took to the airwaves in a series of broadcasts demanding justice for a decorated black veteran who had been beaten and blinded by white police officers.

The Woodard case is very well documented in Simon Callow's "Hello Americans". Barbra Leaming's 1985 "Orson Welles" deserves credit too, as the first Welles book to really bring significant attention to it. Frank Brady's 600-page "Citizen Welles", which came out around the same time, is a fine book, but it doesn't mention the Woodard case at all, though he does devote ten full pages to Welles's stage production of "Around the World", which happened the same summer.

[NoFake]

Frank Brady's 600-page "Citizen Welles", which came out around the same time, is a fine book, but it doesn't mention the Woodard case at all, though he does devote ten full pages to Welles's stage production of "Around the World", which happened the same summer.

Has anyone ever asked him why it doesn't? Perhaps Wellesnet could -- according to Amazon, he's still teaching at St. John's -- given the unexpected relevance and immediacy of the (larger) subject.

[Le Chiffre]

My guess is he didn't know about it. Lots of Welles's work was unknown or forgotten during the last few years of his life. To most people, he was the guy that did CITIZEN KANE, WOTW, and Paul Masson commercials.