On the night of July 17, 1944, an ammunition explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine on Suisun Bay, near present-day Concord, killed 320 men. Of the dead, 202 were African American sailors, according to the National Park Service. The disaster and the court-martial that followed became a turning point in the desegregation of the U.S. military.
What happened
In the segregated Navy of 1944, Black sailors were largely limited to jobs such as cooks or stevedores loading and unloading ships, the NPS explains. The NPS says the men loading munitions had little training and inadequate safety measures, and officers bet on whose crew could load the fastest. The NPS says all it took was "an errant shell dropping to the deck from a cargo net." About 5,000 tons of munitions exploded aboard and around the ships S.S. Quinault Victory and S.S. E.A. Bryan. At least 390 people were injured, according to Wikipedia's account.
The work stoppage and the 'Port Chicago 50'
On Aug. 9, 1944, less than a month later, survivors were ordered to resume loading munitions at Mare Island. Of 328 men in three divisions, 258 refused. Those who agreed to go back to work were convicted in summary courts-martial. The Navy singled out 50 men as ringleaders and charged them with conspiring to make mutiny. Thurgood Marshall, then the NAACP's chief counsel, attended the trial as an observer and raised concerns about racial discrimination. All 50 were convicted and sentenced to 15 years and dishonorable discharges. Forty-seven of them were released in January 1946, and the other three served additional months.
What changed
The NPS says the Navy began desegregating its units in June 1945. Wikipedia's account dates the start of Navy desegregation to February 1946. In 1948, President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 to desegregate the armed services. Munitions handling also began requiring certification.
Exoneration 80 years later
President Clinton pardoned one of the 50, Freddie Meeks, in 1999. On July 17, 2024, the 80th anniversary of the explosion, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro exonerated the Port Chicago sailors, citing legal errors in the courts-martial, the NPS says. The NPS says the exoneration covered the Port Chicago 50 along with 208 men who refused to work and were court-martialed. Wikipedia puts the total at 256 men.
Visiting the memorial
The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated in 1994. It sits on an active Army installation, Military Ocean Terminal Concord, so every visitor must be cleared by the Army. The NPS says to request a visit at least two weeks ahead, and visitors must be U.S. citizens.
More Bay Area history: the 1969 Alcatraz occupation.