VIDEO: Watch the Trailer for THE BINDING OF ISAAC WOODARD on PBS

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was taken off a Greyhound bus after a heated exchange with the driver, who refused to let him off at a rest stop to use the restroom.

Watch the trailer for "The Binding of Isaac Woodard" below.

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 awakenings of South Carolina Judge J. Waties Waring and 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. Produced and directed by Jamila Ephron, executive produced by Cameo George, and narrated by André Holland (Moonlight), "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard" premieres Tuesday, March 30, 2021, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video App.

'"The Blinding of Isaac Woodard' illustrates how a single individual can be the spark that ignites a movement and creates a seismic shift in public opinion," said Cameo George, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE executive producer. "Although his name is little-known today, Isaac Woodard's story changed hearts and minds-and the law of the land."

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