Mutiny! Discrimination! Explosives!
All of these words are at the heart of this powerful book by
Steve Sheinkin. During World War II,
sailors were working on the Navy base at Port Chicago, California. The men were not supposed to be segregated,
but in fact the only men required to work on the munitions were black men. The goal for the work they were doing was to
safely load munitions onto the Naval ships to prepare for battle. This was dangerous work, but there was
tremendous pressure to go faster and get the work done more quickly. Eventually, this became an unsafe situation. The men warned the commanders that the
encouragement to be faster led to safety issues. This was ignored and there was a huge
explosion. Over 300 men were killed and
dozens more were injured.
You would think this tragedy would result in changes so
things would be safer, but the black sailors were told to report back to the
dock and resume the munitions work. They
knew this was too dangerous and so they refused to go back. The problem was that they didn’t have the
right to refuse to go back because they were sailors in the Navy. This meant that they could be (and were)
charged with mutiny. This could mean
serious results- many years in prison. The
sailors knew there was no real choice in the matter- they could lose their
lives if they had to go back to the munitions work without any changes made to
ensure safety. This is the story of what
the men did and how they were treated as a result of their decisions.
Steve Sheinkin did an excellent job of making the reader aware of how dangerous this work was and the consequences for the men. There is a sense of imminent danger and the despair because of the men's lack of choice. They asked questions like if this work wasn't dangerous why were only black men doing it? The danger and civil rights rights violations were at the heart of the issue.
