Greetings from the Newberry County Literacy Council. As the leaves show off their fall colors, we are busy with our fall activities.

We are offering tutoring in reading, math, and texting and working on an employment program that will give people the digital skills to apply for and find a job. Our Weekly Reader Book Club is finishing “Jazz” by Toni Morrison and the People’s College has just finished “American Wolf” by Nate Blakeslee. Next week we will begin a short book about climate change.

We also continue to engage in activities together that promote exposure to learning, cultural literacy, and diverse entertainment. A good group of us attended the William Bell performance at the Opera House in September. Bell is a pioneer soul singer who began his career in the 1950s; he was a pleasure to hear. An even bigger group went to see Nobuntu, an a cappella ensemble from Zimbabwe. They sang a mixture of African music with specific selections from different tribes in Zimbabwe and enlightened us about Zimbabwe culture. And last week we attended a lecture at the Opera House by Judge Richard Gergel, author of the book, “The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring.”

Woodard was a decorated African-American soldier in World War II and when he was discharged from Fort Gordon in 1946, he boarded a bus for Winnsboro to rejoin his wife. In the town of Batesburg, the bus driver told Woodard to step off the bus and then called the police to report that Woodard had been drinking and abusive, which Woodard and other witnesses denied. The police chief, Lynwood Shull, came to the bus and arrested Woodard after clubbing him in the head with his baton. He then marched Woodard to the jail but began striking him again after Woodard failed to say “sir” when responding to a question. Repeated blows to the head rendered Woodard unconscious and when he woke up the next morning he could not see. Shull had struck him repeatedly in both eyes with the butt end of the baton. Under pressure from President Truman, the Justice Department filed civil rights charges against Shull.

This case is interesting for many reasons but from the standpoint of the Literacy Council it is a shining example of continuing education, a desire to keep learning and asking questions, even about things you have taken-for-granted. Even when you are sixty-six years old! That is how old Judge Waring was when he was assigned to the trial, which took place in Columbia in the fall of 1946. Previously, as Gergel notes, Waring had been skeptical about the federal government’s role in civil rights. This trial dramatically altered his thinking. It showed him in stark terms the racial injustices in the social and legal systems. Waring was struck immediately by the lack of energy, commitment, and preparation by the federal prosecutors. They failed to call key witnesses to support Woodard and they did not produce medical testimony about the extent of Woodard’s beating that would have rendered absurd Shull’s statement that he hit Woodard once. Waring was also dismayed by the defense attorneys’ tone and arguments. Woodard, they said, was a member of “an inferior race that the South has always protected” and that the way he talked to the bus driver was proof of his intoxication since “that’s not the talk of a sober (explicit) in South Carolina” (quoted in Gergel, 127). Years later Waring reflected that “I was shocked at the hypocrisy of my government” (from Gergel, 131). Waring, and his wife, in the wake of their shock and dismay, began a journey of discovery, examining their taken-for-granted positions about race and southern society by studying all available literature about race and holding long discussions. He was sixty-six years old, an age at which most are solidly set in their ways and perspectives. But he could no longer justify or tolerate his failure to question himself about who he was and what he needed to be and do. That’s a model for all of us. He and his wife were also models of courage. Waring was the judge in the Briggs v. Elliot case and ruled in favor of the black plaintiffs. That case would become part of the larger Brown v. Board of Education case that was argued in the Supreme Court, the case that declared segregated schools unconstitutional. For his support of integration and his rulings over the next few years in favor of challenges to the existing “separate but equal” doctrine, Waring and his wife were vilified and ostracized by the white establishment in Charleston. Retiring in 1952, Waring and his wife moved to New York. We can’t all be national public figures who risk jobs and reputations by standing up for what is right but we can all be active and assertive in doing this in our communities. The Literacy Council tries to provide the literacy skills that enable us to take this path.

Until next time, Happy Reading

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/web1_josephmcdonald.jpg

The Literacy Corner

Joseph McDonald

Joseph McDonald is a retired sociology professor from Newberry College and has worked with the Newberry County Literacy Council for more than 20 years as a tutor and board member. The Literacy Council is located at 1208 Main Street. Visit newberryread.com, call 803-276-8086 or send an email to newberrycountyli@bellsouth.net for more information.