The sailors, who worked loading ammunition in all Black units under white officers, were vilified as cowards and mutineers for refusing to return to their jobs after an explosion killed 320 people on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago naval depot. Meanwhile, the white officers were given 30 day leaves following the disaster.

"The lesson is we stood up for our rights," Meeks told the New York Times after learning of the pardon. "We stood up to get the same rights the whites had."

Over the last year pressure has been building to clear the names of the Black sailors. A television movie starring Danny Glover, a number of articles, a documentary, and books on the case have appeared. Last July 17, a 55th anniversary commemoration held in the Bay Area, sponsored by the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center, drew together survivors and supporters to press for justice.

Not all the survivors and seamen convicted of mutiny were in favor of a presidential pardon. According to the December 24 San Francisco Chronicle, Jack Crittenden, 74, of Montgomery, Alabama, said he was not interested in a pardon. "If a pardon means freedom from punishment, I've already served my time and been punished," he said. He called instead for Congress to pay full death benefits to the families of the 320 men who died at Port Chicago. The $5,000 benefit the families had been entitled to at the time was reduced by Congress to $3,000.

The devastating explosion was a result of speedup instituted by the U.S. Navy in the final years of World War II at Port Chicago, which was the main ammunition depot for ships bound for the Pacific war theater.

White officers bet on which crew could load the most ammunition. Joseph Small, who the Navy claimed was the "ringleader" of the mutiny, said in The Port Chicago Mutiny, a book by Robert Allen, "There was always a net loaded and ready to go aboard, and always one empty and ready to be lifted out of the hold. The DC [Division Commander] was going to win his fifty or burn up the winches and kill the crew."

Allen's book also quotes junior officers who say they were criticized by higher ups for their "lack of tonnage." Captain Merrill Kinne, the officer in charge of Port Chicago, initiated the practice of posting daily average rates of loading for each division.

The International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) warned the Navy of the inevitability of an explosion under these conditions. They pointed out that no union longshoreman was allowed to handle ammunition without five years experience. The ILWU volunteered to train the Black Navy recruits, an offer the Navy ignored.

On July 17, 1944, crews were pushed to get the USS E.A. Bryan loaded so it could sail and make room for another ship on the dock. The Bryan was a Liberty ship, said to be "built by the mile and chopped off by the yard." They were loading "hot cargo," incendiary bombs left for last because they have the fuse intact.

At 10:17 p.m. two explosions disintegrated the ship and the docks, blew the second ship out of the water, and devastated the barracks and the nearby town of Port Chicago. The force of the explosions were felt over the entire Bay Area and registered as a small earthquake on the seismic graphs in San Francisco.

Of the 320 people killed in the explosion, 202 were Black—everyone on the two ships, the pier, and the fire barge. Only 51 bodies were found sufficiently intact to be identified. A total of 390 military personnel and civilians were injured, a number of them blinded by flying glass.

A Naval Court of Inquiry was convened four days later to investigate the explosion. While dismissing the testimony of witnesses about unsafe practices as "inconclusive," the judge advocate in charge of the investigation, Lieut. Commander Keith Ferguson, said, "The colored enlisted personnel are neither temperamentally or intellectually capable of handling high explosives.... There was rough and careless handling of the explosives being loaded aboard the ships at Port Chicago."

The officers were cleared of responsibility for the disaster,

Many of the white officers were given 30-day leaves following the explosion but the Black seamen were ordered to return to work on August 9. Among them, 258 said they would obey any other order but they were afraid to handle ammunition. They were held in a barge, interrogated individually, some forced to sign false statements.

Rear Admiral Carleton Wright told the men, "Mutinous conduct in time of war carries the death sentence, and the hazards of facing a firing squad are far greater than the hazards of handling ammunition."

Still, facing these threats, 50 refused to return to loading ammunition. They were charged with mutiny and the Navy unleashed a hysteria campaign to back up the charges and to blame the Black seamen for the explosion itself.

The seamen conducted themselves in a steady and dignified manner under fire from the prosecution and press and in the face of weak defense counsel.

At the urging of local leaders of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, then the organization's main legal counsel who later became a Supreme Court Justice, attended the trial in its fourth week. The next day, October 10, Marshall held a news conference denouncing the prosecution and the Navy for racist discrimination and its disregard for safety.

On October 24, after only 80 minutes of deliberation, including time for lunch, the Navy court found all the defendants guilty of making a mutiny and sentenced them to 15 years hard labor and then a dishonorable discharge.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund took up the seamen's appeal and launched a public campaign to win support for overturning of their mutiny convictions. The NAACP issued a pamphlet in 1945, entitled, Mutiny? The Real Story of How the Navy Branded 50 Fear-shocked Sailors as Mutineers.

News of the presidential pardon sparked a debate here that was reflected in the letters to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Howard Mass wrote that he "was a deck hand on an Army Transport Service tug, which made frequent trips to Port Chicago to tow gasoline and ammunition barges. Cruising by the blast site a few days later, one could see the devastation: a tangle of wreckage and a dismembered ship's propeller sticking in the mud.

"After the explosion, nobody wanted to go anywhere near Port Chicago. It was a time of rumor and speculation. It took several weeks before people stopped jumping at every loud noise. If the Navy had subsequently demonstrated to everyone that Port Chicago had been made safe, the black sailors would have served. I'm glad a pardon was finally given."

John Willis wrote, "Gee, my uncles were stupid," explaining that both were Marines in World War II, one killed and the other suffering "major psychological" wounds. "Turns out all they would have had to do was claim that war was dangerous and refuse to fight. Then, 50 years later, a draft-dodging president would pardon them because it seemed 'politically correct.'"

Several subsequent letters took issue with Mr. Willis's views.

Willis responded, "The point was that many men in World War II, especially those out actually fighting the enemy, were also scared and frightened for their lives, but they managed to do their duty and serve their country honorably. To make a 'hero' out of someone who refused a direct order during wartime and displayed cowardly behavior is to dishonor all those veterans who had the courage to fight for our country."

Robert Martin wrote back: "Mr. Willis still doesn't get it. Black soldiers at Port Chicago (and elsewhere) were exposed to treatment reserved for 'lesser beings.' World War II black soldiers were often considered 'disposable,' thus they were subjected to death and danger far beyond what Mr. Willis understands.... He simply does not understand that racism did exist and still exists, needlessly poisoning the lives of people of yesterday and today. Port Chicago was simply one manifestation of that painful, racist reality."  
 
 
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