A tragic event occurred on July 17, 1944 that shocked the United States Navy and led to major problems with mutiny and civil rights. These problems are shown in Port Chicago 50, the book discussed in this paper, and are shown through different viewpoints. Even though this story is based at a naval base for the United States military, the problem with civil rights is not only show in military but is shown as a national problem as well since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had not been passed yet. This paper will be showing the story of Port Chicago 50, what points the author Steve Sheinkin was trying to get across, and how these components connect to American Government.
Port Chicago 50 is a book that shows the struggles of 50 African American men as they fight for equal rights in a naval base located in the San Francisco Bay. All of this started when an explosion occurred on the base from ammo being stored onto boats headed for the pacific ocean. Most of the men that were caught in the explosion were of African American ethnicity as a result of the military still being segregated by race because the Civil Rights Act had still not been
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He also shows what mutiny actually was compared to what people thought it was during segregation in the war by using situations these men had to tie it back together to civil rights in the military. By pointing out the flaws that we had not only in the military but also in our country, it helps show us where we need to improve and what we need to work on to bring us all together and strengthen us as a whole. He also shows how far we have come from then because the navy became the first branch of the military to become unsegregated and we now have nothing in America that is segregated based off of