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Marshall
was present at the trial and he voiced the frustration and
anger of the men on trial. Marshall said, "This is
not fifty men on trial for mutiny. This is the Navy on trial
for its whole vicious policy towards Negroes - Negroes in
the Navy don't mind loading ammunition. They just want to
know why they are the only ones doing the loading! They
want to know why they are segregated!"
After
the war, with the help of the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall's
persistence, the sentences of the 50 black sailors were
significantly reduced, but not overturned.
Ultimately,
the actions of the black sailors helped change the face
of the U.S. Navy; soon white sailors were put to work side
by side with black sailors loading ammunition at Port Chicago.
Thurgood Marshall's efforts and NAACP Legal Defense Fund
pressure contributed to the Navy beginning a systematic
policy of desegregation under Secretary of the Navy James
V. Forrestal.
In
1948, when President Harry S. Truman signed the historic
Executive Order 9981, ordering an end to the racial segregation
in the U.S. Armed Forces, the Navy was already in compliance.
But
more than 50 years later, the convictions of the 50 black
sailors of Port Chicago still stand.
Reports
in October 2004 about 18 men and women in the U.S. Army
in Iraq who refused to deliver supplies with sub-standard,
dangerous equipment along a perilous route remind us how
relevant the Port Chicago tragedy is in our own times.
Text
from portchicagomutiny.com
and from historychannel.com.
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