The Northwest Enterprise

THE NORTHWEST ENTERPRISE
PORTLAND - Ta
2216 S. E. 37th
Phone EAst 791
Mary M. Duncan, Editor
ISAAC WOODARD, BLINDED VETERAN,
AT LIBERTY HALL, NOV. 9TH, 8 P. M.

Isaac Woodard looks at the brave new world he fought so hard to preserve through mosquito tormented nights in fever laden jungles and steaming hot days made more awful by Jap sniper slugs. At long last came the day when the tired veteran returned home to peace and a nation's gratitude. Then at a bus stop in Batesburg, S. C., Isaac Woodard's dream of tolerance and a greater understanding between men were shattered by a police chief's nightstick. The mouth foaming race-hating policeman beat out two eyes which had carried Woodard through those many months in the murky New Guinea jungle. Isaac Woodard's fight is done. He found that hate and the seeds of the same fascism against which he fought thousands of miles away in a foreign land is also a police chief at a little bus stop in Batesburg or Lawrenceburg, or Monroe, or Jackson, Minden, Athens, Los Angeles and Washington. And so, blinded, shocked and out of the fight, Isaac Woodard on his mother's arm, staggered into the office of the N.A.A.C.P. A Baptist Minister had told Mrs. Woodard to go there. "They'll help your son," he said. And he was right. The N.A.A.C.P. did not give Isaac Woodard his eyes. No one can do that. But it did focus national attention on the atrocity. Woodard's case was carried to the War Department, to the Department of Justice, and to the Veterans Administration. It was carried to the people through the press and radio. And finally, after people from every corner of the nation contributed to the NAACP's Isaac Woodard Trust Fund, the guilty storm trooper was discovered. Today he stands indicted by the Department of Justice. Isaac Woodard now understands what the Baptist Minister meant when he said 'Go to the NAACP. They'll help you.' He was speaking of 535,000 people. They are the NAACP. They can always be counted on. Saturday, November 9th, 8 P. M. Portland Branch Joins hands with branches throughout the nation, sponsoring a big rally at Library Hall (Central Library) 10th and Yamhill, at which Isaac Woodard will be special guest, accompanied by N.W. Griffin, Pacific Coast regional director. Portlanders will have opportunity to get first handed how Leonard L. Shull, chief of the Batesburg, S.C., police department beat out Woodard's eyes. Dr. Robert N. Joyner, Jr., president of the Portland Branch is chairman of the rally. Rev. H.W. Hebblethwaite will preside. FLASH A verdict of not guilty has been returned in favor of the South Carolina police, who punched out the eyes of Isaac