Julius Waties Waring

[3] He was in private practice of law in Charleston from 1902 to 1942 and an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of South Carolina from 1914 to 1921.

[3] After divorcing his first wife and marrying the Northern socialite Elizabeth Avery, Judge Waring quickly transitioned from a racial moderate to a proponent of radical change.

"[5] Political, editorial, and social leaders in South Carolina criticized and shunned Judge Waring and his wife[6] to the point where, in 1952, when he assumed senior status,[1] they left Charleston altogether and moved to New York City.

In 1946, Chief of Police Linwood Shull of Batesburg, South Carolina, and several other officers beat and blinded Isaac Woodard, a black man on his way home after serving over three years in the army.

The local United States Attorney charged with handling the case failed to interview anyone except the bus driver, a decision that Waring believed was a gross dereliction of duty.

The defense attorney's behavior was also contrary, at one point telling the jury that "if you rule against Shull, then let this South Carolina secede again",[7] and he later shouted racial epithets at Woodard.

Though the plaintiffs lost the case before the three judge panel which voted 2-1 for the defendants, Waring's eloquent dissent, and his phrase, "Segregation is per se inequality"[13] formed the legal foundation for the United States Supreme Court in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

[17] In 2019, Judge Richard Gergel wrote a book about the impact of the Isaac Woodard case on Waring and President Harry Truman.

[18] In 2021, the PBS series, American Experience, (season 33) first aired "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard" which focused on Judge Waring's role in that case.