Title
Adoption of Resolution Supporting Local, State, and Federal Efforts to Exonerate the Port Chicago 50. (City Manager 10021030) [Continued from October 17, 2023]
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jennifer Ott, City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Port Chicago was a small town in Contra Costa County, east of the town of Martinez on the Suisun Bay, a little more than 30 miles away from Alameda. The Port Chicago Alliance website (www.portchicago50.com) provides a history of the Port Chicago Disaster, a massive explosion that killed 320 men, two-thirds of whom were African-American, as they were loading Navy ships with ammunition for the Pacific theater, the protest of the Port Chicago sailors, and the sentencing of the Port Chicago 50 for conspiracy to commit mutiny.
In 2022, resolutions supporting exoneration of the Port Chicago 50 were passed by the Cities of Concord and Albany and the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors; and in 2023, the State of California passed a resolution and local United States representatives sponsored a resolution calling for the exoneration of the Port Chicago 50. The proposed City of Alameda (City) resolution supports local, state, and federal efforts to exonerate the Port Chicago 50.
BACKGROUND
Port Chicago was a small town in Contra Costa County, east of the town of Martinez on the Suisun Bay, a little more than 30 miles away from Alameda. The Port Chicago Alliance website (www.portchicago50.com) provides a history of the Port Chicago Disaster, a massive explosion that killed 320 men, two-thirds of whom were African-American, as they were loading Navy ships with ammunition for the Pacific theater, the protest of the Port Chicago sailors, and the sentencing of the Port Chicago 50 for conspiracy to commit mutiny. This tragedy accounted for 15% of all Black American military deaths during World War II. In 1994, the National Park Service established a National Memorial at Port Chicago Naval Magazin...
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