IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 40 
Recognizing the victims of the Port Chicago explosion of July 17, 1944, 
the 77th anniversary of the greatest homeland loss of life of World 
War II, and exonerating the 50 African-American sailors unjustly court- 
martialed by the Navy. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 16, 2021 
Mr. DESAULNIER (for himself and Ms. LEE of California) submitted the fol-
lowing concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Armed Services 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Recognizing the victims of the Port Chicago explosion of 
July 17, 1944, the 77th anniversary of the greatest 
homeland loss of life of World War II, and exonerating 
the 50 African-American sailors unjustly court-martialed 
by the Navy. 
Whereas the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Contra Costa 
County, California, was a vital supply facility for the 
Navy during World War II, shipping ordinance for use in 
the Pacific Theater; 
Whereas, under the rules governing the Navy at the time, the 
Port Chicago Naval Magazine was operated as a seg-
regated facility in which undertrained and poorly 
equipped African-American sailors, under the supervision 
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•HCON 40 IH 
of White officers, exclusively conducted the hazardous 
task of loading munitions aboard ships; 
Whereas there had been numerous complaints and warnings 
about the unsafe nature of the loading operations, includ-
ing the conduct of contests by White officers to achieve 
the most rapid loading of ships despite the inherent dan-
gers involved in such actions; 
Whereas, on the night of July 17, 1944, the Port Chicago 
Naval Magazine and much of the town of Port Chicago 
were destroyed by a cataclysmic explosion that killed 320 
men, 202 of whom were African-American enlisted men; 
Whereas these losses on a single night represented one-fifth 
of all African-American naval casualties during World 
War II; 
Whereas, following the catastrophe, none of the African- 
American survivors was provided survivor leave or other 
recuperative services provided to the White personnel, in-
cluding the officers; 
Whereas African-American survivors of the explosion were or-
dered back to the Port Chicago site to conduct cleanup 
operations; 
Whereas, on August 9, 1944, with no cause having been de-
termined for the explosion and no additional training 
having been provided to the African-American loaders, 
328 men from three divisions were ordered to the loading 
pier at the nearby Mare Island, which served as the Port 
Chicago replacement facility; 
Whereas many of the men expressed concern about the inad-
equacy of safety procedures and training, leading to 258 
being arrested and confined for three days on a large 
barge tiered to the pier; 
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Whereas the confined sailors were threatened with prosecu-
tion and potential execution, leading 208 to return to 
work; 
Whereas the 50 who refused to return to loading operations 
were subjected to the largest mass mutiny trial in naval 
history, which resulted, on October 24, 1944, in a convic-
tion on the charge of mutiny and a sentence of up to 15 
years imprisonment and dishonorable discharge from the 
Navy; 
Whereas, after appeals and widespread protests in January 
1946, which included the participation of future Supreme 
Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and former First Lady 
Eleanor Roosevelt, the Port Chicago men were released 
from prison but their convictions remained on their 
records; 
Whereas, in a 1994 investigation, the United States Navy 
stated that ‘‘there is no doubt that racial prejudice was 
responsible for the posting of only African-American en-
listed personnel to loading divisions at Port Chicago’’; 
Whereas the unfairness of the Port Chicago mutiny prosecu-
tion would ultimately serve as one of the catalysts for the 
1948 Executive Order requiring desegregation of the 
Armed Services; 
Whereas the Committee on Natural Resources of the House 
of Representatives conducted hearings on the Port Chi-
cago case in 1993 and, in 1994, Congress, on a bipar-
tisan basis, passed legislation creating the Port Chicago 
National Memorial as a feature of the National Park 
Service, including plaques commemorating those who lost 
their lives at the site in 1944; 
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Whereas, in 1999, a pardon was granted to one of the few 
surviving members of the Port Chicago 50, Freddie 
Meeks, by President William Clinton following a thorough 
review of the case; 
Whereas, since 1999, substantial legal, academic, and jour-
nalistic inquiry has documented the inherent racial moti-
vation behind the operations at Port Chicago and the 
prosecution of the Port Chicago 50; 
Whereas, on December 16, 2015, the Secretary of the Navy, 
the Honorable Ray Mabus, wrote to the President 
‘‘strongly support[ing] executive action in favor of the 49 
remaining Sailors with general court-martial convictions 
or the 207 with summary court-martial convictions . . . 
in light of the well documented challenges associated with 
uniformed service by African Americans during that 
era.’’; 
Whereas, in 2000, Congress approved S.J. Res. 26 to post-
humously exonerate Captain Charles B. McVay III, cap-
tain of the USS Indianapolis, for his wrongful court mar-
tial, and President William Clinton signed that resolution 
on October 30, 2000; 
Whereas the language of that resolution was enacted as sec-
tion 545 of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Au-
thorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106– 
398), including language that Captain McVay’s military 
record ‘‘should now reflect that he is exonerated for the 
loss of the USS Indianapolis and so many of her crew’’; 
and 
Whereas, on July 17, 2021, the Nation will mark the 77th 
anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster, and the unjust 
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and racially motivated convictions remain on the records 
of the Port Chicago 50: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
concurring), That Congress— 
(1) recognizes the service and sacrifice of those 
who served and perished at Port Chicago during 
World War II; 
(2) hereby and forever exonerates the Port Chi-
cago sailors of the charge of mutiny against the 
United States and any and all other charges brought 
against them in the aftermath of the July 17, 1944, 
explosion; 
(3) upgrades the general and summary dis-
charges issued to each of the Port Chicago sailors to 
honorable discharges; and 
(4) directs the Secretary of the Navy to place 
a letter attesting to these actions in the file of each 
of the Port Chicago sailors and to notify any sur-
viving family members of these actions. 
Æ 
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