Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avrigan.

This day February 1946, just hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army,

a South Carolina man by the name of Isaac Wooder Jr. was attacked and beaten by police while taking a bus ride home. He was still

wearing his uniform. After getting into a verbal altercation with the bus driver and

then the police he was taken into custody and beaten. The next morning he

appeared before a local judge where he was convicted of drunken and disorderly

conduct and fined $50 in court ordered to claim that he was beaten for addressing

officers by yes instead of yes sir?

Look this incident sparked a national outrage tapped into a larger conversation

about the role of black Americans in fighting for the United States in the Second World War and then returning to a country that didn't recognize their rights or full citizenship.

So here to discuss the worded incident, Black Vets and Lotsmore are as always

Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this episode is Matthew Delmond history professor at Dartmouth University and author of the book Half American the epic story of African Americans fighting World War II at home and abroad. So Matt, thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. So I guess we'll get

into the details of the worded incident, but you know we remember his name, it was notable.

You wrote about him in your book,

but like, how unique was his experience?

This incident, really.

So what's unique about the Woodard case

is the national attention received. This kind of violence

against black troops and black veterans was unfortunately too commonplace during World War II.

During the war there were numerous incidents that were reported in the black press of black troops being attacked in some cases

...