The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights

by Steve Sheinkin

Overview

An astonishing World War II military story of civil rights from New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin.

A National Book Award Finalist
A YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution.

The Port Chicago 50 is a fascinating story of the prejudice and injustice that faced black men and women in America's armed forces during World War II, and a nuanced look at those who gave their lives in service of a country where they lacked the most basic rights.

This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum, including history and social studies.

“Sheinkin delivers another meticulously researched WWII story, one he discovered while working on his Newbery Honor book, Bomb...Archival photos appear throughout, and an extensive bibliography, source notes, and index conclude this gripping, even horrific account of a battle for civil rights predating Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Also by Steve Sheinkin:

Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion
King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution
Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War
Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250073495
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	01/03/2017
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	53,308
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	950L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of fast-paced, cinematic histories for young readers. He is a three-time National Book Award finalist and two-time winner of the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. Bomb was a Newbery Honor Book and The Port Chicago 50 won the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. His other acclaimed books include The Notorious Benedict Arnold and Most Dangerous. Sheinkin also writes the Time Twisters series. He lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children.

Read an Excerpt

FIRST HERO

 

 

HE WAS GATHERING dirty laundry when the bombs started falling.

It was early on the morning of December 7, 1941, at the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Mess Attendant Dorie Miller had just gone on duty aboard the battleship USS West Virginia. A six-foot-three, 225-pound Texan, Miller was the ship’s heavyweight boxing champ. But his everyday duties were somewhat less challenging. As one of the ship’s African American mess attendants, he cooked and cleaned for the white sailors.

Miller was below deck, picking up clothes, when the first torpedo slammed into the side of the West Virginia. Sirens shrieked and a voice roared over the loudspeaker:

“Japanese are attacking! All hands, General Quarters!”

Miller ran to his assigned battle station, an ammunition magazine—and saw it had already been blown apart.

He raced up to the deck and looked up at a bright blue sky streaked with enemy planes and falling bombs. Japan’s massive attack had taken the base by surprise, and thunderous explosions were rocking American ships all over the harbor. Two direct hits cracked through the deck of the West Virginia, sending flames and shrapnel flying.

Amid the smoke and chaos, an officer saw Miller and shouted for him to help move the wounded. Miller began lifting men, carrying them farther from the spreading fires.

Then he spotted a dead gunner beside an anti-aircraft machine gun. He’d never been instructed in the operation of this weapon. But he’d seen it used. That was enough.

Jumping behind the gun, Miller tilted the barrel up and took aim at a Japanese plane. “It wasn’t hard,” he’d later say. “I just pulled the trigger, and she worked fine.”

As Miller blasted away, downing at least one enemy airplane, several more torpedoes blew gaping holes in the side of the West Virginia. The ship listed sharply to the left as it took on water.

The captain, who lay dying of a belly wound, ordered, “Abandon ship!”

Sailors started climbing over the edge of the ship, leaping into the water. Miller scrambled around the burning, tilting deck, helping wounded crewmembers escape the sinking ship before jumping to safety himself.

*   *   *

After the battle, an officer who had witnessed Miller’s bravery recommended him for the Navy Cross, the highest decoration given by the Navy. “For distinguished devotion to duty,” declared Miller’s official Navy Cross citation, “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor.”

In early 1942, soon after the United States had entered World War II, Admiral Chester Nimitz personally pinned the medal to Miller’s chest. “This marks the first time in this conflict that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race,” Nimitz declared. “I’m sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.”

And then Dorie Miller, one of the first American heroes of World War II, went back to collecting laundry. He was still just a mess attendant.

It was the only position open to black men in the United States Navy.

 

Text copyright © 2014 by Steve Sheinkin

Editorial Reviews

Sheinkin tells this shameful history with the deft, efficient pacing of a novelist. And while photographs, double-spaced type and sunburst graphics at the start of each chapter make the book visually appealing to young readers, The Port Chicago 50 is just as suitable for adults. The seriousness and breadth of Sheinkin's research can be seen in his footnotes and lists of sources, which include oral histories, documentaries and Navy documents. It's an impressive work and an inspiring one.

The New York Times - Sarah Harrison Smith

★ 11/11/2013
Sheinkin delivers another meticulously researched WWII story, one he discovered while working on his Newbery Honor book, Bomb. The accidental explosion at Port Chicago, a California Navy base where African-American servicemen loaded ammunition onto ships, killed more than 300 soldiers and injured nearly 400. The author carefully details how this long-forgotten event from 1944 was pivotal in helping end segregation in the military. Though not as fast-paced as Bomb, the dialogue-laden narrative draws heavily on past interviews with the servicemen, telling the story from their perspective. Ordered to load ammunition without proper training—and often in a competitive atmosphere fostered by their white officers—50 African-American sailors refused to return to the same work after the disaster. Readers get a front-row seat at their mutiny trial through myriad trial transcript excerpts. Tried and convicted, their convictions still stand today despite efforts to expunge the now-deceased men’s records. Archival photos appear throughout, and an extensive bibliography, source notes, and index conclude this gripping, even horrific account of a battle for civil rights predating Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Ages 10–14. Agent: Susan Cohen, Writers House. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Through effective research, Sheinkin re-creates a story that remains largely unknown to many Americans, and is one of the many from World War II about segregation and race that is important to explore with students.” —School Library Journal, starred review

“Sheinkin delivers another meticulously researched WWII story, one he discovered while working on his Newbery Honor book, Bomb....Archival photos appear throughout, and an extensive bibliography, source notes, and index conclude this gripping, even horrific account of a battle for civil rights predating Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“In this thoroughly researched and well-documented drama, Sheinkin lets the participants tell the story, masterfully lacing the narrative with extensive quotations drawn from oral histories, information from trial transcripts and archival photographs. The event, little known today, is brought to life and placed in historical context, with Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson figuring in the story.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Sheinkin follows Bomb (rev. 11/12) with an account of another aspect of the Second World War, stemming from an incident that seems small in scope but whose ramifications would go on to profoundly change the armed forces and the freedom of African Americans to serve their country.” —The Horn Book

From the Publisher

★ 02/01/2014
Gr 7 Up—In the summer of 1944, 50 sailors, all of them African American, were tried and convicted of mutiny by the U.S. Navy. They had refused to follow a direct order of loading dangerous rockets and munitions on ships bound for battle in the Pacific after an enormous explosion had killed more than 300 of their fellow sailors and other civilians working on the dock. At the heart of this story is the rampant racism that permeated the military at all levels, leaving minority sailors and soldiers to do the drudge work almost exclusively while their white counterparts served on the front lines. Through extensive research, Sheinkin effectively re-creates both the tense atmosphere at Port Chicago before and after the disaster as well as the events that led to the men's refusal of this one particular order that they felt put them directly in harm's way. Much of the tension in this account stems from the growing frustration that readers are meant to feel as bigotry and discrimination are encountered at every turn and at every level of the military. There is a wealth of primary-source material here, including interviews with the convicted sailors, court records, photographs, and other documents, all of which come together to tell a story that clearly had a huge impact on race relations in the military. This is a story that remains largely unknown to many Americans, and is one of the many from World War II about segregation and race that is important to explore with students. Abundant black-and-white photos, extensive source notes, and a thorough bibliography are included.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA

School Library Journal

Narrator Dominic Hoffman serves as an outstanding educator while also capturing the voices of many of the victims of this tragedy. He also portrays Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who became involved with their case. In 1944, on the segregated naval base in Port Chicago, California, 300 black sailors were killed and many others injured when the munitions they were loading onto warships exploded. Three weeks later they refused to return to their unsafe duties. During a court-martial, they were found guilty of mutiny despite much evidence to the contrary. This audiobook offers young listeners a splendid opportunity to hear a trial in action and learn about the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2014 - AudioFile

★ 2013-11-20
On July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, an explosion--the largest man-made explosion in history to that point--killed more than 300 men, leading to the largest mass trial in United States history. "[B]efore Brown v. Board of Education or Truman's executive order, before Rosa Parks or Jackie Robinson--before any of this, there was Port Chicago." At Port Chicago, Navy ships were loaded with bombs and ammunition. All of the officers were white, and all of the sailors handling the dangerous explosives were black, with no training in how to do their jobs. When the huge explosion flattened the base, 320 men were killed, 202 of them black sailors who had been loading the ammunition. When it came time to resume work, 50 black sailors refused to work under the unsafe conditions on the segregated base and were charged with mutiny, with the possibility of execution. In this thoroughly researched and well-documented drama, Sheinkin lets the participants tell the story, masterfully lacing the narrative with extensive quotations drawn from oral histories, information from trial transcripts and archival photographs. The event, little known today, is brought to life and placed in historical context, with Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson figuring in the story. An important chapter in the civil rights movement, presenting 50 new heroes. (source notes, bibliography, acknowledgments, picture credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews