Port Chicago Alliance

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Port Chicago Alliance 501(c)(3) nonprofit honoring the legacy of the Port Chicago Sailors through historic recognition, public education, and community-driven remembrance.

For Congresswoman Simon, Port Chicago is more than a chapter in American history. She is the granddaughter of a man who ...
10/10/2026

For Congresswoman Simon, Port Chicago is more than a chapter in American history. She is the granddaughter of a man who survived the deadliest home front disaster of World War II.

On July 17, 1944, an explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine killed 320 people—including 202 Black servicemen. Its aftermath exposed the dangerous labor, unequal treatment, and systemic segregation imposed upon Black Sailors serving their country during World War II.

When hundreds refused to resume am******on loading under unsafe conditions, fifty were convicted of mutiny with the possibility of death by firing squad. Their courage forced the nation to confront injustice within its own Navy and helped move the military toward desegregation.

Now, their history is helping inspire a new pursuit of justice.

Congresswoman Simon and Congressman Mark DeSaulnier have introduced the “Confronting and Correcting Historical Injustices Act,” legislation that would establish a commission to investigate and recommend remedies for historical injustices committed by federal agencies.

⚓︎ “In order to realize the founding ideals of our country, we must recognize and address the darker chapters in its history marked by discrimination and hate.”

—Congressman Mark DeSaulnier

⚓︎ “This legislation establishes a path to address these injustices and demand the accountability communities deserve.”

—Congresswoman Lateefah Simon

Port Chicago lives in its descendants and through the people today carrying its fight for justice forward.

✦ Save our Sailors’ stories through the link in our bio.


[◉°] Deandre Forks
Oakland Museum of California
Congresswoman Lateefah Simon
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

10/07/2026

They didn’t just pass the test. They passed it twice.

The second time? They scored even higher.

The Golden Thirteen broke the Navy’s officer color barrier. Meanwhile, the Port Chicago 50’s refusal to return to dangerous am******on-loading conditions exposed the racial discrimination Black servicemen faced during World War II.

The trial drew attention from the NAACP and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, helping make Port Chicago part of the growing demand for equality in the military.

The Navy began taking steps toward integration during World War II.

❖ In 1946, it became the first branch of the U.S. military to formally prohibit segregation.

❖ Two years later, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, directing equality of treatment and opportunity throughout the Armed Forces.

✦ This Fleet Week, we celebrate the courage of the Black Sailors who pushed America toward equality and changed the country forever.

✦ Carry their brave legacy forward and save our Sailors’ stories at the link in our bio.

❖ Featured Film: “The Golden 13: How Black Naval Heroes Overcame Historic Odds” — Everyday Heroes

This was more than a trial. It was the fight for equality that changed America.In 1944, future Supreme Court Justice Thu...
10/02/2026

This was more than a trial. It was the fight for equality that changed America.

In 1944, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall—then a young attorney with the NAACP—came to the Bay Area for the largest mass mutiny trial in United States history: fifty Black Sailors, charged after refusing to return to the unsafe work that had killed 320 people at Port Chicago.

He interviewed the accused Sailors, attended the proceedings, investigated the conditions surrounding Port Chicago, and challenged a segregated Navy that assigned Black Sailors its most dangerous labor while denying them equal opportunity, training, and protection.

The Navy convicted all fifty men, but Marshall carried their case before the nation. Through legal appeals and public advocacy, he helped transform their prosecution into a national reckoning over race, military justice, and equality.

The Port Chicago Sailors stood for their lives. Marshall fought for their names. Together, their courage helped press the Navy to become the first branch of the U.S. military to formally prohibit segregation.

✦ Discover their courage and save our Sailors’ stories today through the link in our bio.

10/01/2026

In 1999, long before the beloved roles millions would come to know him for in “Arrow,” “The Flash” and beyond, David Ramsey appeared in “Mutiny” — a role that would stay with him for more than two decades.

Ramsey joined Emmy Award-winning journalist Dayvee Sutton on KRON4 Weekend Morning News to discuss the true story of the Port Chicago 50 and why this pivotal chapter in American history still matters today.

“Mutiny” dramatized the aftermath of the 1944 Port Chicago disaster, when 320 people were killed in a catastrophic explosion at a Navy am******on depot. When hundreds of surviving Black Sailors protested orders to return to the same hazardous and discriminatory working conditions, 50 of those men were ultimately convicted of mutiny in the largest mass mutiny trial in U.S. Navy history.

“We owe these men our highest honors, our highest gratitude, our highest respect,” Ramsey said. “In my opinion, they’re not celebrated enough.”

Today, as our new National Ambassador, Ramsey carries that history beyond the screen, helping ensure that the courage and legacy of the Port Chicago Sailors reach new audiences and future generations.

Eighty-two years later, their courage deserves to be known and celebrated.

✦ Discover “Inside Mutiny: The Role David Ramsey Never Forgot” at the link in our bio and help save our Sailors’ stories.

✦ A new chapter is on the horizon! Stay tuned for Dayvee Sutton’s upcoming documentary on the Port Chicago 50, honoring the Sailors whose courage helped shape the fight for equality.

09/29/2026

When the government segregated their grief, Black mothers had to choose between their dignity and their sons’ graves.

In May 1918, President Woodrow Wilson approved the gold star as the emblem of families who had lost a loved one in military service. The idea came from suffragist Anna Howard Shaw and the Woman’s Committee. In 1929, Congress authorized the government to send the mothers and widows of the World War I dead to Europe to visit their graves, at no cost to them.

Of the 17,389 women eligible, 624 were African American.

Their sons and husbands had served in the same war. Yet when the pilgrimages began in 1930, the government separated the women by race. Black mothers and widows sailed on separate ships and were housed in separate hotels.

The NAACP protested and urged a boycott. By July 7, 1930, seven Black women had declined the trip because of segregation. Others, like Katherine Holley, chose to go. In photographs of their journey, Black mothers are seen carrying the American flag, claiming their place as American mothers of American soldiers.

On September 27, 1936, the nation observed its first Gold Star Mother’s Day. Black mothers had already shown what it meant to demand an equal place in the nation’s mourning.

This week, we remember them and their immense bravery.

✦ Sources: National Archives · Library of Congress · Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture · American Battle Monuments Commission · Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries

09/25/2026

“I didn’t remember men; I only remembered boys.”

This week, we remember the late Betty Reid Soskin on what would have been her 105th birthday and the young Port Chicago Sailors whose courage she carried with her for the rest of her life.

On July 17, 1944, several Black Sailors gathered at Betty and her husband’s Berkeley home, where they could listen to music and enjoy one another’s company away from the segregation that followed them beyond the naval base.

Among them was a remarkably young Sailor Betty remembered only as Richert. That evening, the Sailors returned to Port Chicago for duty.

Hours later, the explosion killed 320 people—202 of them Black servicemen. Betty initially believed the blast was an earthquake. She never saw Richert again.

Weeks later, fifty surviving Black Sailors were placed on trial for refusing to resume am******on-loading work under unchanged and unsafe conditions. Their trial began on September 14, 1944, becoming the largest mass mutiny trial in U.S. Navy history.

As we remember the trial of the Port Chicago 50 this September, Betty’s account calls us back to the people behind the history: young men who laughed, listened to music, served their country, and deserved to return home.

Betty spent her later years ensuring America would remember them.

⚓︎ 1921—2025 | Thank you, Betty, for a century of courage.

✦ Save our Sailors’ stories today and discover how their courage transformed America forever through the link in our bio.

✦ UC Berkeley Oral History Center — Betty Reid Soskin, Volume II, Interview 4

✦ National Park Service — Of Lost Conversations: Betty Reid Soskin, Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park

09/23/2026

During World War II, a catastrophic explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California killed 320 men and exposed unsafe and segregated working conditions for Black American Sailors.

Following the disaster, White officers were granted time off to recover, while the surviving Black Sailors were denied customary survivors’ leave and ordered to clean up the naval base, including the grim task of recovering the remains of their fallen shipmates. After the cleanup, the men were transferred to the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, where they remained under the same leadership that had overseen operations at Port Chicago.

Just three weeks after the explosions, and before an official investigation could determine the cause, hundreds of Black Sailors were ordered back to handling explosives with no additional safety measures or training, and no indication that Navy leadership intended to enforce existing safety regulations.

In an act of protest, 258 Sailors refused to resume loading am******on under the same hazardous and discriminatory conditions. Navy officials confined them on a barge, where they were held under armed guard for three days.

Under threats of ex*****on, 208 Sailors reluctantly agreed to return to duty, while fifty men held their ground, insisting that safety conditions be improved or that they be reassigned to other duties. They remained under guard at Mare Island while Navy officials determined whether they would be prosecuted.

✦ Save our Sailors’ stories today with the link in our bio.

Listen to the Port Chicago Sailors’ full oral history ✦ UC Berkeley Oral History Center

At the 82nd anniversary commemoration of the Port Chicago disaster, John P. “Sean” Coffey — the 24th General Counsel of ...
09/19/2026

At the 82nd anniversary commemoration of the Port Chicago disaster, John P. “Sean” Coffey — the 24th General Counsel of the Department of the Navy and a key figure in the 2024 exoneration of the Port Chicago Sailors — returned to the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial with three paintings depicting Port Chicago Sailor Ollie Eaton Green and his sons, Ollie Jr. and Edward.

Coffey presented them to Rev. Diana McDaniel, Yulie Padmore, and Jonathan Lee — three advocates he recognized for their roles in the long fight to preserve the Sailors’ history and clear their names.

The choice of Green carried special meaning.

When Coffey began reviewing the Port Chicago cases, Green’s conviction was one of the first things that caught his attention. On the day Green was ordered back to loading am******on, he had a broken wrist, a splint, and a doctor’s note excusing him from loading.

He was convicted of mutiny anyway and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

Green had shown remarkable courage during the 1944 mutiny trial. In proceedings that limited testimony about hazardous working conditions, racial discrimination, and failures by Navy leadership, Green testified about the dangerous competition between loading divisions to move am******on faster.

Eight decades later, Coffey’s review ultimately led to the recommendation that the convictions be set aside.

On July 17, 2024 — exactly 80 years after the Port Chicago explosion — Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro set aside the convictions and sentences of 256 Sailors connected to Port Chicago.

At this year’s commemoration, the paintings connected generations of that story: a Sailor who spoke up in 1944, a family that carried his legacy, advocates who refused to let the injustice be forgotten, and a Navy that ultimately cleared their names.

The Sailors did not live to see their exoneration.

Our responsibility now is to make sure their names — and the full story of those who fought for them — are never forgotten.

Learn more at the link in our bio. ✦


[◉°] Halle Antoine

09/18/2026

Port Chicago became the U.S. Navy’s deadliest home-front disaster of World War II, claiming 320 lives—including 202 Black Sailors.

Lloyd Anthony McKinney survived the explosion—but carried its aftermath in his body, his posture, and his silence. Weeks later, he became one of fifty Black Sailors convicted of mutiny for refusing to return to unsafe am******on-loading work.

For eighty years, his story lived in gestures, photographs, and unanswered questions.

“Those men showed bravery. This is my opportunity to be brave.”

In “The Senses of Silence,” McKinney’s grandson, LaMar “YoHan” Vinson, follows those traces transforming inherited trauma into remembrance and silence into understanding.

Part memoir and part historical restoration, the newly released book honors a Black Sailor whose courage went unrecognized and a family that carried his truth across generations.

✦ You have the power to save our Sailors’ stories. “The Senses of Silence” is available now through YoHan’s Creative Circle and booksellers nationwide.


LaMar YoHan Vinson

09/17/2026

This September, we’re remembering the trial of the Port Chicago 50—the largest mass mutiny trial in United States history and a civil-rights turning point that made America confront segregation in the Navy.

The trial began on September 14, 1944, after fifty Black Sailors refused to resume am******on-loading work under unchanged and unsafe conditions following the Port Chicago explosion.

One year later, the Navy released “The Negro Sailor,” a film celebrating Black Sailors’ service, skill, and patriotism during World War II.

This month, we’re pressing play again and looking beyond the screen at the trial, the testimony, and the courage that helped transform the United States Navy.

✦ Save our Sailors’ stories today with the link in our bio.

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