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MARTINEZ, Calif. - On the 80th anniversary of The Port Chicago Disaster, the U.S. Navy exonerated 256 Black sailors who were wrongfully convicted in a 1944 port explosion that killed hundreds of service members in the Bay Area.
On Wednesday, Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, announced the full exoneration of the sailors who are now deceased. The exoneration includes 256 of the 258 convicted sailors. Two sailors were cleared by former Navy secretaries due to insufficient evidence and a lack of mental capacity.
Del Toro ordered a new investigation and found that 258 African American sailors were tried as a group in the 1944 Port Chicago case. They also discovered the sailors were not given proper legal counsel.
As reported by the Washington Post, the exoneration of the Black sailors, Del Toro said, "clears their names, restores their honor, and acknowledges the courage they displayed in the face of immense danger."
On July 17, 1944, munitions being loaded onto a cargo ship detonated, causing secondary blasts that ignited 5,000 tons of explosives at Port Chicago naval weapons station near Martinez.
The explosion killed 320 sailors — of which 202 were black — and injured another 400 personnel. The remaining Black sailors were tasked to retrieve the bodies and clean the site. The white officers were sent home.
At the end of the Navy's 39-day investigation, they cleared all white officers of any liability or fault.
After receiving orders to return to work, many men were concerned about the unsafe environment and the chance of another explosion. They refused to return to work where they handled ammunition. Two-hundred-fifty-eight of the sailors were arrested.
The sailors were threatened with court-martial, prosecution, and execution if they did not continue to load ammunition. Two-hundred-eight of the sailors returned and were charged with disobeying lawful orders and the 50 that continued to refuse were charged with mutiny.
The 50 sailors convicted of mutiny were sentenced to serve prison terms ranging from 8 to 15 years. Appeals and widespread protests swept the country. NAACP General Counsel, Thurgood Marshall, submitted an appeal directly to the Navy's Judge Advocate General's office.
By January 1946, WW II ended, and the "Port Chicago 50" were released from prison, but the convictions remained on their record. The next month, the Navy ended all formal segregation.
In a recent Navy statement, Del Toro said, "The Port Chicago 50, and the hundreds who stood with them, may not be with us today, but their story lives on, a testament to the enduring power of courage and the unwavering pursuit of justice."