Comments for The Port Chicago 50

The Port Chicago 50: 02/28/14

The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin is a young adult nonfiction history of the Port Chicago explosion and its aftermath.

Port Chicago, California, near Martinez along the southern coast of Suisun Bay, was a navy base and town that served as the shipping point for live munitions during WWII. Black men who wanted to serve their country were stationed at places like this, doing jobs their white counterparts were too scared to perform.

On July 17, 1944 a massive explosion killed 300 people and leveled a large portion of naval yard. Among the survivors, 244 men, decided working conditions were too unsafe and they refused to return to work. Fifty of those men were singled out and charged with mutiny.

The Port Chicago 50 covers an important piece of domestic WWII, and early Civil Rights history. It's a piece that has been overlooked and ignored in history books and shouldn't be.

Five stars

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