JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In 1946, Orson Welles, the director of "Citizen Kane," was at the height of his fame. At the time, he had a national radio show airing on ABC.
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ORSON WELLES: Hello. This is Orson Welles. I've come to visit with you for a few minutes. I'll try to have a story for you each time, and I'm going to speak my mind about the news. You know, we don't have to agree on everything to be friends.
SUMMERS: After a year on the radio discussing politics in Hollywood, Welles heard of a shocking crime. It was just after World War II. A Black soldier heading home was brutally beaten by a white police officer in a small South Carolina town called Batesburg. No one seemed to know much more about the attack, including the identity of the officer. Welles pledged to solve the mystery on the air. Our friends over at "Radio Diaries" tell the rest of the story. It begins with an eyewitness account from the scene of the crime.
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CORINE JOHNSON: I'm right here at the spot where the theater was - right across the street here. Well, all these trees weren't there then.
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JOHNSON: My name is Corine Johnson. I'm 98 years old. When I was 18 years old, I just got out of high school. I was working at the theater. One of the fellas that worked at the theater came over and he said, Corine, some police over there beating up a man. I left the ticket box. I said, what? I want to see.
You see that space right over there? That's where it happened. And I stood on the railroad track, and I saw a man by the drugstore. He was down on the street there being beat up by the police. I didn't know who it was. Well, that's what I saw. I'm the only witness living that can tell it.
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JOHNSON: And I ain't never forgot it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: On February 12 of 1946, an African American soldier in uniform on the day he is discharged is brutally beaten in South Carolina.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: This horrific event happened to this young soldier, but we didn't know how, and we didn't know who was responsible.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This story could have easily have been just a footnote if you did not have Orson Welles lifting it up to public attention.
RICHARD GERGEL: Orson Welles immediately recognized that this was a story. It was a great whodunit.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: This is ABC, the American Broadcasting Company.
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O WELLES: Good morning. This is Orson Welles speaking. I'd like to read to you an affidavit.
(Reading) I, Isaac Woodward Jr. (ph), being duly sworn to depose and state as follows, that I am 27 years old and a veteran of the United States Army, having served for 15 months in the South Pacific and earned one battle star. While I was in uniform...
GERGEL: I'm Richard Gergel. I'm the author of "Unexampled Courage," about the blinding of Isaac Woodard. Here is the story. Isaac Woodard and a group of soldiers, Black and white, who had been that day discharged from Fort Gordon, were heading home on a bus. They were sharing a bottle and talking and laughing. I'm sure they were a bit loud and a little rabunctious (ph). And some of the white folks on the bus didn't like it. The bus driver didn't like it.
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O WELLES: (Reading) About one hour out of Atlanta, the bus driver stopped at a small drugstore. As he stopped, I asked him if he had time to wait for me until I had a chance to go to the restroom. He cursed and said no.
GERGEL: The bus driver cursed him.
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O WELLES: (Reading) When he cursed me...
GERGEL: And Isaac Woodard...
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O WELLES: (Reading) ...I cursed him back.
GERGEL: ...Cursed him back. He is in the first hours of his return to America. This is a man with battlefield metals on his chest, sergeant stripes on his shoulders, and he is treated like he's nothing. And he spoke up. The bus driver left his bus in search of a police officer. And Woodard tried to explain that all I was trying to do was go to the bathroom. And the response to that was to be hit over the head with a blackjack.
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O WELLES: (Reading) After that, the policeman grabbed me by my left arm and twisted it behind my back.
GERGEL: And a moment later, he was being led away, and the bus left without him.
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GERGEL: And on the way to the town jail where he was being arrested, he was beaten repeatedly by a police officer, eventually driving the end of the baton into both of Woodard's eyes.
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O WELLES: (Reading) He started punching me in my eyes with the end of the billy. He pushed me inside the jailhouse and locked me up. I woke up next morning and could not see. I was blind.
LAURA WILLIAMS: Sergeant Woodard survived, but he was blinded permanently. My name is Laura Williams, and Isaac Woodard was my uncle. Immediately after the attack, there was so much confusion because my family didn't know where he was. Isaac didn't even know where he was.
GERGEL: A reporter - guy by the name of John McCrae, who was also very active in the NAACP - heard the story that there was a Black man at the VA South Carolina Hospital who had been beaten by a white police officer and was now blind.
JAMES L FELDER SR: The brutality of beating a veteran like that, still in uniform, coming home from fighting a war, that was enough to really galvanize the support of the NACP (ph). My name is James L. Felder, Sr. I was executive director of the NACP from South Carolina.
GERGEL: The NAACP knew that Orson Welles was a friend of the Civil Rights Movement. They believed it would capture his imagination, and they were right. He heard about it, I think, on a weekday, and that Sunday he was on the national radio.
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O WELLES: The blind soldier fought for me in this war. The least I can do now is fight for him. I have eyes. He hasn't. I have a voice on the radio. He hasn't.
BEATRICE WELLES: My name is Beatrice Welles, and I'm Orson Welles' daughter. Nobody talked about this kind of stuff in 1946 on the radio, about a Black man being beat by a white man. He wanted America to know who the culprit was.
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O WELLES: Now, it seems the officer of the law who blinded the young Negro boy of the affidavit has not been named. Till we know more about him, for just now, we'll call the policeman Officer X. He might be listening to this. I hope so. Officer X, I'm talking to you.
FELDER: Even his tone caught your attention. It's not something that just hit you and bounced off. It just kind of sears itself into your brain.
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O WELLES: Wash your hands, Officer X. Wash them well. Scrub and scour. You won't blot out the blood of a blinded war veteran.
GERGEL: He was demanding accountability for white people for inflicting violence against Black people.
FELDER: He was right on the case. That was a beginning. That was a beginning.
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O WELLES: You're going to be uncovered. We will blast out your name. I will find means to remove from you all refuge, Officer X. You can't get rid of me.
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SUMMERS: That was Episode 1 of "Orson Welles And The Blind Soldier." You can hear the rest of the series - two more episodes - on the "Radio Diaries" podcast. This story was produced by Mycah Hazel, Nellie Gilles and Joe Richman of "Radio Diaries." It was edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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