Radio Rootz' This Day in History

• produced by Arturo Contreras
• in

 A huge explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Ammunitions Base in California killed 320 navy men, injured 390 others, the majority of who were black. WWII was a particularly controversial time for black soldiers in the US Armed forces, which were still heavily segregated. Many black enlistees were assigned to Port Chicago to load highly explosive materials onto Navy ships, despite being untrained for this task. They encountered rampant racism and poor work conditions and were deliberately uniformed of the dangers they faced. The month following the explosion, black sailors at Port Chicago staged the Port Chicago Mutiny in an attempt to resist the Navy’s racist policies.