ORSON WELLES'S COMMENTARY (RADIO)

Summary

One in this series devoted to commentary by Orson Welles on current events. On this program, Welles champions the cause of Isaac Woodard, Jr., a black veteran. Returning home by bus after his honorable discharge in February 1946, Woodard was savagely beaten and blinded by a white policeman in Aiken, South Carolina. After reading Woodard's own account of the incident, Welles uses a racist joke to launch an angry, impassioned speech against racism addressed directly to "Officer X," the policeman involved. He warns Officer X that although Woodard cannot be compensated for the loss of his sight, he (Welles) will see to it that Officer X is found and punished.

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