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  1. Isaac Woodard

From the recording Isaac Woodard / Daniel Crabtree

Isaac Woodard

ISRC: QM2PK1720948

Written by Daniel Crabtree

Publisher: Three Girls I Work For, ASCAP

Executive Producer: Daniel Crabtree

Recorded at Digital Underground Recording Studio

Recording Engineer: Scott Vestal

Lead Vocals: Daniel Crabtree

Harmony Vocals: Scott Vestal

Guitar: Cody Kilby

Banjo: Scott Vestal

Fiddle: Jason Carter

Mandolin: Jesse Brock

Bass: Mike Bub

In honor of February being Black History Month, Daniel Crabtree has written and recorded a song about Isaac Woodard. Honorably discharged Army Sergeant Isaac Woodard returned to the United States after fighting abroad in World War II, traveling via bus on February 12, 1946, to his home in Winnsboro, South Carolina. The 26-year-old Black man asked the bus driver if he could pull over at a rest stop to use the bathroom. The driver refused and subsequently ordered Woodard to disembark at the next stop in Batesburg, South Carolina, where police arrested Woodard. Woodard was blinded by police chief Lynwood Shull, who beat him in the eyes with a billy club. Shull was acquitted in November 1946 by an all-white jury tasked with determining whether he used excessive force. The incident of police brutality became a tipping point in the civil rights movement. As Woodard told supporters at an August 1946 benefit concert, "If the loss of my sight made people in America get together to prevent what happened to me from ever happening again to any other person, I would be glad."

Daniel previously released four albums: 2016's The Gospel Road, 2017's In the Shadow of His Wings, 2019's The Storyteller in Me and 2021's The Way I See It. He is currently preparing his fifth album, a bluegrass gospel project titled Closer Than I've Ever Been.

"People should learn how to live with one another and how to treat one another. Because after all, we all are human beings, regardless of color." - Isaac Woodard