Freddie Meeks, 83, pardoned by President Bill Clinton 55 years after being court-martialed for mutiny for refusing to return to work after the cataclysmic Port Chicago explosion, died Thursday in Los Angeles.
Mr. Meeks had been in poor health for several months and died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in west Los Angeles, his son, Daryl, said Friday.
When two ships loaded with 10,000 tons of ammunition exploded at Port Chicago near Concord, Calif., on July 17, 1944, 320 servicemen were killed and nearly 400 others were injured. It was the worst stateside disaster of World War II.
Mr. Meeks was among 50 black sailors who were convicted of mutiny because, fearing for their safety, they would not return to duty at Port Chicago. He and others were imprisoned for 18 months before the sentences were commuted to time served.
For decades, Mr. Meeks refused to speak about the incident, even to his own children.
Mr. Meeks’ children found out about the mutiny conviction after a professor interviewed him in the mid-1980s for a book on the explosion. In the 1990s, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) pushed for a presidential pardon for Mr. Meeks, the only survivor who sought a pardon. Miller also fought for the Port Chicago National Monument at the site of the catastrophe.
Mr. Meeks returned to Port Chicago in 1994 for the dedication of the memorial.
“That was the first time he had returned to the site,” his son said. “That was a very emotional time for him.”
Even more overwhelming was Clinton’s signing of the presidential pardon in December 1999.
“I don’t think President Clinton ever fully understood when he signed his name what it meant for my father,” his son said. “You could see the emotional state he was in–the tears–after it was granted. It was more than just a piece of paper exonerating him.”
Mr. Meeks worked for Los Angeles County for 16 years, and then worked for CBS studios as a security officer. In the mid-1970s, when black guards were kept in behind-the-scenes, menial jobs, Mr. Meeks wrote to the president of CBS in New York to complain, prompting a change in policy allowing blacks the more coveted front security positions.
Mr. Meeks is survived by his wife of 63 years, Eleanor; another son; a daughter; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.