Family of Port Chicago 50 hopes this will be the year of exonerations
CHICAGO (CBS) — The daughter of one of the men who was part of the "Port Chicago 50," a group of Black sailors charged and convicted in the largest U.S. Navy mutiny in history, is focusing her attention in hopes of having them exonerated this year.
Carol Cherry had to do her research before she could recite the story by heart. Growing up, she knew her birth father as "uncle," and he never spoke of it.
"Cyril Oscar Sheppard, Jr. was my pop," she said. "(He) never shared it with me… Knowing the backstories behind some of the pictures warms my heart."
It's a story from July 1944, far from Cherry's home in Sycamore, Illinois.
"He was 20 years old. He made a grown-up decision that changed a lot of lives," Cherry said.
Cyril Sheppard was a third-class gunner's mate in the Navy in Port Chicago, California. He and fellow Black sailors in the Bay Area were tasked with a dangerous job they weren't trained to do – loading live munitions onto ships.
"He says, 'They got all of us together, and they just dumped us down there to load these ships.' He says there were no white guys out there doing it. It was just the Black guys," Cherry said.
After he left work one night, there was an explosion. And then another. Three hundred twenty were killed, and 390 were hurt. It was the worst home-front disaster of World War II.
"It had to be traumatic," she said.
When Sheppard and other Black sailors were ordered to resume the same dangerous work, they refused.
"It was 50 guys left, and he was one of those 50," Cherry said.
The Port Chicago 50 were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison.
"He served, I think he said, 22 months," Cherry said. "So, as of today, they are still guilty mutineers. Many of them lived and died with some level of shame, some level of fear."
Cherry hopes this is the year when the Port Chicago 50 are exonerated.
"These guys were mistreated from the first day, and they deserve honor," Cherry said. "And I want my children to be proud of what he's done."
July 17 will mark 80 years since the Port Chicago disaster, and Carol Cherry plans to visit the site for the first time.
"I am really excited about it," Cherry said," adding that she'll attend a ceremony honoring all the lives that were lost. "In my view, they were heroes."
