Waring had been initially supported by the establishment of Charleston. 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. Speaking at a Harlem church, he proclaimed: "The cancer of segregation will never be cured by the sedative of gradualism." Political, editorial, and social leaders in South Carolina criticized and shunned Judge Waring and his wife to the point where, in 1952, he assumed senior status, 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 Isaac Woodard, a black man on his way home after serving over three years in the army, including repeatedly striking him in the eyes, blinding him. After it became clear that the state authorities of South Carolina would take no action against Shull, President Harry S. Truman himself initiated a case, brought to the federal level on the grounds that the beating had occurred at a bus stop on federal property, and that at the time of the assault, Woodard was in uniform. The case was presided over by Waring, but by all accounts the trial was a travesty. 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 behavior of the defense was no better. The defense attorney at one point told the jury that "if you rule against Shull, then let this South Carolina secede again", and he later shouted racial epithets at Woodard. The jury found Shull not guilty on all charges. The failure to convict Shull was perceived as a political failure on the part of the Truman administration and Waring would later write of his disgust of the way the case was handled commenting, "I was shocked by the hypocrisy of my government...in submitting that disgraceful case..."
Further race-based cases
In several other cases he ruled in favor of those who had challenged racist practices of the time:
In Duvall v. School Board, he ruled that equal pay must be guaranteed for otherwise equally qualified school teachers, regardless of their race. That ruling was made from the bench, so there is no written opinion. However, Judge Waring referred to his earlier decision when he decided a related case in 1947, Thompson v. Gibbes, 60 F. Supp. 872.
In his 1946 ruling he held that "a Negro resident of South Carolina was entitled to the same opportunity and facilities afforded to white residents for obtaining a legal education by and in the state" and gave the state of South Carolina three options: that the University of South Carolina admit the plaintiff John H. Wrighten, that the state open a black law school or that the white law school at USC be closed. His ruling was not novel, but merely in accordance with the United States Supreme Court's 1938 decision in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada. Rather than integrate the University of South Carolina or close it down, the South Carolina General Assembly] authorized the establishment of a law school at South Carolina State - South Carolina State University School of Law.
Judge Waring opened the all-whiteDemocratic Primary in South Carolina with his rulings in Elmore v. Rice and Brown v. Baskin.
''Briggs v. Elliott''
In 1951 Waring was one of three judges to hear a school desegregationtest case known as Briggs v. Elliott. Thurgood Marshall represented the plaintiffs against the Clarendon County, South Carolina public schools which were described as separate but not at all equal. 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" formed the legal foundation for the United States Supreme Court in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Legacy
In October 2015, the Hollings Judicial Center in Charleston was renamed the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center. Rich Fulcher portrayed him in a second season episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History.
