This is a part of my local history. I grew up in Contra Costa County CA. Port Chicago is a few miles from my home.
There was a small town until the explosion and was virtually torn down afterwards to provide a buffer in case another catastrophic event occurred. When I grew up it was a ghost town.
Munitions for the Viet Nam war were transported through the Concord Naval Weapons Station. My guess is that it’s still a depot there.
We protested the Viet Nam war by blocking the tracks and trains.
Brian Willson, a viet war vet, lost both legs under a train protesting the Contras and President Ronald Reagan’s so-called “secret war” in Nicaragua.
CONCORD — In tandem with the approaching 75th anniversary of the Port Chicago explosion — the deadliest home-front disaster of World War II — an East Bay congressman has added an amendment to a federal bill that would exonerate 50 survivors of the accident who were convicted of mutiny for refusing to return to work in unsafe conditions
The amendment by East Bay Congressman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, calls on the Secretary of the U.S. Navy to publicly exonerate the “Port Chicago 50” — the group of African-American sailors who refused to go back to the Concord Naval Weapons Station to load and unload dangerous munitions without proper safety training. The amendment was inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 220-to-197.
“I cannot think of a more fitting tribute on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster than to finally honor the Port Chicago 50 with exoneration,” DeSaulnier said in a written statement. “For far too long the names of these brave men have been tarnished by our history of racial discrimination, but today we are righting a wrong and giving the Port Chicago 50 the respect they deserved so many years ago.”
In 1944, African Americans in the Navy worked in segregated units and often had to load and unload ships. The men at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine did not get information or training and thought they were handling inactive munitions, according to Friends of Port Chicago National Memorial. In fact, they were loading bombs with warheads.
On July 17, 1944, crews at the Concord Naval Weapons Station were loading two naval vessels with active munitions when the explosives ignited in a series of blasts, killing 320 men — 202 of whom were African American — and injuring 400.
This is way over due.
As a kid I saw de facto segregation in California begin to crumble but the legacy of men like these made it clear that black lives didn’t matter.
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