• By Yulie Padmore
• July 21, 2024

Secretary of the Navy's Remarks from Port Chicago Weekend 2024

Days after exonerating the Port Chicago Sailors, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro attended the Port Chicago Weekend Marcus Shelby Orchestra event on Saturday, July 20, to mark the historic moment. Below are select quotes from his speech:

"[Exoneration] is very much because of the advocacy of so many people, for so long. If you have been an advocate, a fan, a cheerleader, a letter-writer, a phone-caller on this cause, you personally have made a difference... the reverberation of the letters and the phone calls and members of Congress and advocates at all levels, from across the nation, advocating on their part, including my dear friend Thurgood Marshall, Jr. and my dear friend Tracy Roosevelt, who is here with us tonight.

"From the very beginnings, shortly after the [Port Chicago Mutiny] trials, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tracy's great grandmother, started quietly advocating the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox for pardons and reductions in the sentences which had been handed out. It was largely due to her that their sentences were actually reduced. And of course, Thurgood Marshall before he was a Supreme Court Justice, testified in the appeals process that they should have thier sentences completely exonerated. But it didn't turn out that way. So that injustice persisted for decades.

"The more I learned [about the Port Chicago history], the more I felt the conviction that something just wasn't right. I know there had been previous attempts to pardon the Port Chicago 50, but in my own mind, I felt that a pardon just wasn't good enough because a pardon insinuates a sense of guilt, that there was something wrong that they actually did.



"It was the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1951 which restricted my authorities to essentially set aside courts-martial based on my own authority and professional opinion. But, the fact is that before 1951 the Secretary did have the authority to set aside courts-martial. And in the Uniform Code of Justice it clearly states that with cases before 1951, I actually still retain that authority. And it is because of that finding that it then empowered me to legally vacate those courts-martial and exonerate all the Sailors.

"In the three years that I've been Secretary of the Navy, I've had many, many proud moments in my life. I just recently visited Normandy, for example, and I gave a speech at Utah Beach. I'll remember that until my dying day. And I'll remember talking as part of that experience to the many World War II veterans that were there, and them telling me stories of their courage in the Pacific and the Atlantic. And as I reflected today, I thought about those World War II vets, but I also thought about the Port Chicago 50 and those other 208 men who were equally brave. They put up their hands and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. And undoubtedly many of them probably knew they would be sacrificing their lives, in one form or another, in defense of their country. But it shouldn't have happened this way.

"We as leaders in the United States military and in the United States Government have an obligation to protect the safety of our own and to treat all members of the military with dignity and respect.

"I'm so, so thankful to our Commander in Chief President Biden and to my Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for empowering me to be able to look into this case. I'm very thankful to them both for demonstrating that leadership and that confidence in me and my Navy team to address this incredibly important issue.

"This case isn't just about honoring [the Port Chicago Sailors] and their tremendous sacrifice. It also has everything to do with not allowing injustices today to persist and permeate our Department of Defense and our Government." ⋆