30 Apr 2025
Open Secret
This riveting documentary investigates allegations of systemic racism and child sexual abuse in the New Hanover School District.
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
The event that opened the eyes of a nation.
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.
Top Billed Cast
André Holland Narrator (voice)
Leland Gantt Isaac Woodward (voice)
Kenneth Mack Self
Sherrilyn Ifill Self
Rawn James Self
Richard Gergel Self
Belinda Gergel Self
Robert Young Sr. Self
Patricia Sullivan Self
Laura Williams Self
Gilbert King Self
Kari Frederickson Self
J. A. De Laine Jr. Self
Nathanial Briggs Self
Harry S. Truman Self (archive footage)
Isaac Woodard Self (archive footage)
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