Port Chicago disaster, civil rights role to be memorialized

CONCORD — During World War II, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine was a bustling hub where hundreds of African American sailors — segregated from their white counterparts — toiled as “stevedores,” loading cluster bombs, ammunitions, mines and other explosives onto Navy ships bound for the Pacific theater.

But tragedy struck shortly after 10 p.m. on July 17, 1944, when lax military safety protocols sparked a massive explosion that effectively vaporized nearby cargo ships and facilities on the base along the shores of Suisun Bay — instantly killing 320 sailors and civilians, who were predominantly young African American men in their late teens to early twenties, and injuring nearly 400 others. Only a few bodies were ever recovered.

The blast propelled a massive fireball into the night sky, sent a shock wave of flying shrapnel that flattened Port Chicago and measured 3.4 on the Richter scale in nearby Berkeley.

In honor of the 80th anniversary Wednesday, a four-day “Port Chicago Weekend” will meld education and entertainment July 18-21 to honor the catastrophe — the deadliest military disaster on mainland American soil during World War II.

Scores of events are planned in Concord, Pittsburg, Vallejo and Oakland, where attendees can enjoy live music, watch a theatrical performance of the “Port Chicago 50” play, and listen to firsthand accounts from relatives of the service members who perished eight decades ago.

While the National Park Service holds a commemoration ceremony every year at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial in Concord, Yulie Padmore, director of the Port Chicago Alliance, said she helped spearhead this year’s events with community organizers, historians and performers to increase engagement and broaden the appeal of this important Bay Area history.

“After all, the Bay Area’s role in advancing civil rights in our nation is something to celebrate, and we hope these events will be entertaining as well as educational,” said Padmore, who first learned about this history eight years ago from the East Bay Regional Park District’s efforts to spotlight the naval base. “In addition to racial integration, the Port Chicago explosion and its aftermath catalyzed reforms that have since influenced labor laws and practices, ensuring better protections for workers and fostering a culture of safety and fairness that continues to shape our society today.”

While the exact cause of the explosion was never determined, historical records pointed blame at Navy leaders for circumventing proper protocol while training the majority of African American sailors to load munitions at Port Chicago.

In the aftermath, 50 Black men refused to continue loading munitions. They were subsequently court-martialed at Yerba Buena Island in a mass trial and convicted of mutiny, sentenced to punishments that ranged from confinement to years of hard labor.

By 1946, most of the convicted sailors were released and granted clemency, and the Navy became the first of the U.S. armed forces to desegregate. All branches of the U.S. armed forces followed suit by 1948.

However, the Port Chicago 50 were never fully exonerated for disobeying wartime orders. Several efforts by federal legislators since 1990 — including East Bay U.S. Representatives Mark DeSaulnier, John Garamendi and Barbara Lee — to reverse course have been unsuccessful.

Thurgood Marshall, a then-NAACP lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice, swiftly organized national petitions and protests. In October 1944, he said that the Navy should be tried, instead, for its “whole vicious policy toward Negroes. Negroes in the Navy don’t mind loading ammunition. They just want to know why they are the only ones doing the loading.”