Just two years after Truman issued Executive Order 9981, North Korea invaded South Korea, putting the new policy to the test. In response to Woodard’s blinding, Truman declared, “When a Mayor and City Marshal can take a negro Sergeant off a bus in South Carolina, beat him up and put out one of his eyes, and nothing is done about it by the State authorities, something is radically wrong with the system.” Truman’s bold action on civil rights was one factor leading to his upset defeat of Republican Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election.
Those stories had a profound effect on the president, who had grown up in a segregated Missouri town, and who had exhibited profound racism himself throughout his life. Army, was dragged off a bus and beaten until blind by police in Batesburg, South Carolina. Perhaps the most influential letter came from Isaac Woodard, Jr., a World War II veteran who, hours after being honorably discharged from the U.S. Throughout his term in office, many African-American servicemen wrote the president about their harrowing experiences. Truman declared, “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” The president acted upon the wishes of many people, black and white, who believed that if African-Americans and other people of color served their country with honor, they should not be subjected to racial discrimination or violence. President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces. Jwas a red-letter day in American history.
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