Port Chicago Disaster - Political and Social Effect

Political and Social Effect

The Port Chicago disaster highlighted systemic racial inequality in the Navy. A year before the disaster, in mid-1943, the U.S. Navy had over 100,000 African Americans in service but not one black officer. In the months following the disaster, the Pittsburgh Courier, a newspaper with a large nationwide subscription primarily of African Americans, related the incident and the subsequent mutiny trial in their ongoing "Double V" campaign, a push for victory over not just the Axis powers but also over racial inequality at home. The mutiny trial was seen as underscoring the tense race relations in the armed forces at the time.

Late in 1944, under conditions of severe racism, a race riot broke out in Guam at a naval base. In March 1945 a Seabee battalion of 1,000 African-American men staged a hunger strike at their base in Port Hueneme, California, in protest of discriminatory conditions. In the weeks following the latter incident, Fleet Admiral Ernest King and Secretary Forrestal worked with civilian expert Lester Granger on a plan for total integration of the races within the Navy. The Port Chicago disaster had helped catalyze the drive to implement new standards.

Beginning in 1990, a campaign led by 25 U.S. Congressmen was unsuccessful in having the convicts exonerated. Gordon Koller, Chief Petty Officer at the time of the explosion, was interviewed in 1990. Koller stated that the hundreds of men like himself who continued to load ammunition in the face of danger were "the ones who should be recognized". In 1994, the Navy rejected a request by four California lawmakers to overturn the courts-martial decisions. The Navy found that racial inequities were responsible for the sailors' ammunition-loading assignments but that no prejudice occurred at the courts-martial.

In the 1990s, Freddie Meeks, one of the few still alive among the group of 50, was urged to petition the President for a pardon. Others of the Port Chicago 50 had refused to ask for a pardon, reasoning that a pardon is for guilty people receiving forgiveness; they continued to hold the position that they were not guilty of mutiny. Meeks pushed for a pardon as a way to get the story out, saying "I hope that all of America knows about it... it's something that's been in the closet for so long." In September 1999, the petition by Meeks was bolstered by 37 members of Congress including George Miller, the U.S. representative for the district containing the disaster site. The 37 Congressmen sent a letter to President Bill Clinton, and in December 1999 Clinton pardoned Meeks. Meeks died several years later in June 2003. Efforts to posthumously exonerate all 50 sailors have continued. In 2004, author Robert L. Allen was reported as saying "...even for today it's important to have these convictions set aside."