Fact Friday: Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Image: Roaring Brook Press

Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. 200 p. Roaring Brook Press/ Macmillan, January, 2014. 9781596437968. (Own.)

Fact Friday features Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. If you think you dislike narrative non-fiction, you have probably not read anything by Steve Sheinkin. He has the research chops and the narrative skills to take the reader back in time in an intense, immersive reading experience. It is not surprising that he won the Edwards Award this past January for his body of work. 

In Port Chicago, he relates the story of a little-known military disaster from World War II. Port Chicago was a naval base in the San Francisco bay where mostly Black soldiers loaded bombs onto the vessels under dangerous conditions. On July 17, 1944, a huge explosion killed more than 300 people and injured hundreds more. The men were ordered to report back to duty the following day. Two hundred men refused, citing the dangerous conditions. They were charged with treason and threatened with the firing squad. Sheinkin delves into the racism that kept troops segregated and allocated the most dangerous jobs to soldiers of color.