Navy’s exoneration restores honor for the Port Chicago 50

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA (July 20, 2024) — A wrong has finally been righted.

Eighty years after the devastating explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Concord on July 17, 1944, the U.S. Secretary of Navy officially exonerated the Port Chicago 50 – African American sailors who were wrongfully and discriminately charged with mutiny after the incident for refusing to return to work in the same unsafe working conditions that killed their colleagues.

Congressman Mark DeSaulnier, who has doggedly pressed the powers that be in Washington, D.C. to correct the injustice, commended the U.S. Navy’s posthumous action.

“After nearly a decade fighting for justice for the Port Chicago 50, I commend the U.S. Navy and thank Navy Secretary Del Toro for exonerating these heroes and President Biden for his support. Today our nation stands one step closer to fulfilling its founding promise of equality and justice for all,” said DeSaulnier. “I thank Rev. Diana McDaniel and the Friends of the Port Chicago 50, Congressman George Miller and John Lawrence, his then Chief of Staff, and Representatives Barbara Lee and John Garamendi for their efforts to help accomplish this monumental feat.”

McDaniel, who was contacted by Secretary Del Toro ahead of the formal announcement, said “It was so gracious of him to call me personally.

“I burst into tears; I was at a loss for words – I had no idea,” she added.

She views the exoneration as just the latest step in everyone’s efforts to fully recognize and tell the story of what happened on that fateful July day in 1944.

In all, 320 men died in the accident, including 202 Black enlisted men. Just 51 bodies were sufficiently intact to be identified in the aftermath of the late evening explosions. Another 390 sailors and civilians were injured, including 233 Black enlisted men.

While White officers were given time off in the wake of deadly incident, African American sailors were forced to return to the same unsafe working conditions, having never been properly trained in safe munitions loading and handling practices. When 50 of these men refused, they were discriminately charged and convicted of mutiny.

McDaniel’s uncle, Irvin Lowery, who was in the barracks when the explosion occurred, recounted to her how he was just sitting in a chair and was tossed across the room by the force of the blast.

“They had to run out of the building because they thought it was going to collapse,” he recalled.

McDaniel noted that Lowery subsequently used a truck from the installation’s recreation center as an ambulance to transport blast victims to another military hospital because Port Chicago’s was damaged. Unbeknownst to him until later when he finally was able to lay down and rest a few days that he too had sustained injuries in the blast. Barrack window glass blown out in the explosion was found lodged in his back.

The latest positive steps in the Port Chicago 50 case come years after the historic site initially was given affiliate status by the National Park Service with dedication of the Port Chicago National Memorial in 1994. Then, in 2020, site of the horrific explosion was dedicated as America’s newest national park as a long-awaited formal way to honor those lost at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine (PCNM). Through the decades the Friends of Port Chicago have collaborated with the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), which is working with National Park Service, to develop a visitor center on the 2,500-acre park site that will further tell the story, and the racial injustice that Black service personnel endured.

Long-term plans envision artifacts, maps, audio and video presentations, and classrooms in the center with visitors taking a card with a sailor’s picture and the name of his hometown to hold as they move through the exhibits. McDaniel noted between $20 million and $30 million are needed to bring the plan to fruition. The EBRPD has received $3 million through our office for FY23 Community Project Funding for Preparation and restoration of the Concord Naval Weapons Station Building as a public meeting. But Mairead Glowacki, Communications Director for DeSaulnier’s office said EBRPD did not request any additional Community Project Funding for this project in FY24 or FY25.

“While the exoneration is an incredible recognition by the Navy, it will not have any automatic impact on federal funding for the visitors center,” Glowacki said.

Along with achieving the visitor center, McDaniel expressed hope that a couple of benches, as well as some protection cover from the howling winds at that bay side point, could be added to the memorial site with its placard of names so visitors could also sit and contemplate what happened there. But, in her heart, she knows it’s a tough ask as she recognizes the surrounding area live munition weapons station where loading still occurs.

“It is not a like a regional national park when you drive and pay $2,” said McDaniel. “It is more delicate.”

So going forward The Friends of Port Chicago National Memorial group will continue its tireless efforts of “doing as much as we can keep the story alive and fundraising for the new visitor center,” she continued.

If finally achieving exoneration of the Port Chicago 50 showed nothing else, McDaniel viewed the wait as a reminder “to continue the struggle, be persistent and hang in there.”

“Sometimes you take two steps forward and five steps back,” she said. “But when you get knocked down, you have to get back up and keep going.”