The exoneration of 1944 African American sailors
Article: Navy exonerates Black sailors charged in Port Chicago disaster 80 years ago
By DeNeen L. Brown | July 17, 2024
Read an excerpt below and click here for the full article in the Washington Post.
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Eighty years after explosions ripped through the Port Chicago naval facility in California, killing 320 sailors, Coast Guard personnel and civilians, the secretary of the Navy announced Wednesday the full exoneration of African American sailors who were charged in 1944 with mutiny and refusing orders to return to work in dangerous conditions loading ammunition.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in an interview that the decision to exonerate the sailors came after a Navy investigation found legal errors made during the 1944 court-martial trial of 258 Black sailors who had been subjected to threats of execution for refusing to return to work after the July 17, 1944, explosions.
The cause of the explosions, which injured more than 400 people, destroyed two ships and a train, and flattened the nearby town of Port Chicago, was never determined. The disaster at Port Chicago has been called by Navy historians the single worst home-front disaster during World War II.
