The Port Chicago Mutiny (Encore)

On July 17, 1944, two ammunition ships exploded at Port Chicago, Calif., killing 322, including 202 African-Americans assigned by the Navy to handle explosives. It was the worst home-front disaster of World War II. The resulting refusal of 258 African-Americans to return to the dangerous work underpinned the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what is called the Port Chicago Mutiny.

Today, the disaster and its aftermath are memorialized at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, one of a small number of National Park sites that commemorate death and dying on the job. In October 2021, as part of "Monumental Labor," a three-part online series that explored the memory of work and working peoples in National Parks and National Historic Landmarks, a distinguished panel discussed “Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine.” The "Monumental Labor" series was organized by Labor History Today contributor Dr. Eleanor Mahoney and Dr. Emma Silverman. Thanks also to the National Park Service, and to the National Park and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, which helped make the series possible.

On this week’s Labor History in Two: Ida B. Wells and Bloody Thursday.  

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Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon & Chris Garlock.

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