[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 17, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H5926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  12l5
                    REMEMBERING THE PORT CHICAGO 50

  (Mr. DeSAULNIER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Speaker, on this day in 1944, at 10:18 p.m., a 
cargo vessel exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine located in my 
district in California, resulting in the deadliest home-front disaster 
of World War II.
  All of the men loading ammunition at the site that day were African 
American. When the surviving sailors, understandably, hesitated to 
return to those unsafe conditions of loading, 50 were discriminately 
convicted of mutiny.
  Congress and the administration have repeatedly recognized the 
injustice these men suffered. Congress directed the creation of a 
memorial, the executive branch pardoned one of the 50, and the then-
Secretary of the Navy said he strongly supported executive action in 
favor of the Port Chicago 50.
  To commemorate this anniversary, the House of Representatives passed, 
just this week, our measure that directs the Secretary of the Navy to 
finally exonerate the Port Chicago 50.
  On the 75th anniversary today of the explosion, let us remember the 
words of Thurgood Marshall when he traveled to San Francisco to defend 
these innocent men. The future first African American Supreme Court 
Justice said:

       What is at stake here is more than the rights of the Port 
     Chicago 50. It is the moral commitment stated in our Nation's 
     creed.

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