The Port Chicago Effect: Impact Of African Americans During The Vietnam War

Martha Becker

Mrs. Brumley

Honors English 9, Hour 4

29 April 2016

The Port Chicago effect

All throughout history, African Americans have had a huge impact on American wars and only recently received any recognition. In 1775 when George Washington took command of the Revolutionary forces, he told recruiters to stop signing up African American soldiers to fight in the war even though they had already been fighting for our county since the beginning of the war (Sheinkin 6). The order to stop taking African American soldiers never decreased their desire to serve their country, and fight for the ideals laid out in the constitution. Over the years black men continued to try and serve our country, and the navy lifted restrictions slightly. Even though

African Americans were given the opportunity to enlist in the Navy, but were only allowed to be mess men, Mess men were enlisted men that worked in the mess hall. This included cooking, serving, and cleaning up after the meal (Wormser). At the time of the Pearl Harbor bombing, there were over 5,000 African American soldiers serving the U.S. Navy, all as mess men. It was stated by Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, that something as big as segregation was not created by the military and should not have to be fixed by the military, therefore he proposed that nothing should be done to change how discrimination infiltrated the U.S. Navy (Sheinkin 10). Most people, including President Franklin Roosevelt, agreed with Knox’s logic and simply accepted that it was not the thinking of a racist, but rather the thinking of a realist. However, due to the fact that an election was coming up and the president wanted the continued support of African American voters, he looked for a compromise. In April of 1942, the policy was changed, so the Navy would start accepting black volunteers to be trained as sailors (11). Even with the new policy changes, the discrimination and segregation within the Navy was systematically continued and very evident. For example, the white sailors were given higher levels of

Joe Small, a young truck driver from New Jersey, was drafted into the Navy and stood out from the very beginning. Many people looked to him as a leader because his attitude commanded respect. Small was one of many sent to a port just 30 miles from San Francisco, California called Port Chicago. Port Chicago was a base with entirely African American Naval sailors who were each assigned to a ship on which they could never even hope to set sail. The jobs given at this port were mainly loading ammunition onto ships headed to battles in the Pacific. “‘We used to talk about what big fools we were, you know only black boys loaded ammunition’. ‘Only white boys can go aboard ships’(50).” Due to the lack of training that the African Americans received, they had no idea how to handle any of the ammunition crates. On July 17th 1944, at 10:18 PM a huge explosion rocked the base at Port Chicago and any man anywhere near the blast zone was killed instantly. Later, pieces of ships were found up to two miles away (68). Many of the sailors resting in the barracks were injured that night as well. Joe Small was still awake when the blasts occurred and as the structures of the barracks began to give way, he helped make sure every sailor was out of the buildings safely. No one really knows for sure what caused