WASHINGTON -- Fifty five years after he was convicted of mutiny during World War II for refusing to load explosive munitions following a disastrous explosion, former sailor Freddie Meeks of Los Angeles was pardoned today by President Bill Clinton.

"On behalf of all those who have worked so hard and so long for this day, I offer deep appreciation to President Clinton for his action," said Congressman George Miller (D-7,CA), who led the long battle to raise national recognition of the incidents surrounding the Port Chicago disaster and the subsequent court martial of 50 black sailors, including Meeks. "Together with Mr. Meeks and his family, the other Port Chicago sailors and their families can draw enormous significance and closure from this presidential act."

Miller has led an eleven year battle to win recognition of the men who served and died at the Naval munitions loading facility during World War II, and to clear the names of the 50 sailors who were court martialed. Port Chicago's black sailors were segregated in barracks and mess facilities and were ordered to undertake the hazardous loading operations without any training. Research has clearly documented that white officers misled black sailors about the susceptibility of the munitions to explode, and engaged in speed competition among the crews. Evidence now demonstrates that, contrary to the assertions at the time, the explosives were highly volatile and the loading techniques were unsafe.

On July 17, 1944, the largest explosion in history to that date obliterated much of the base and killed 320 men, mostly black sailors engaged in loading two munitions ships. Another 300 were injured. Although no cause was found for the explosion, Navy investigators blamed the black sailors, insinuating they were intellectually incompetent to handle loading operations.

And after the explosion, black sailors were denied leave provided white officers, received no additional training, and safety conditions remained unchanged. Benefits to survivors of black sailors killed in the explosion were reduced once Congress discovered they were black.

The trial of the fifty who refused to resume loading operations -- the largest mass mutiny trial in U.S. history -- resulted in convictions of all defendants despite appeals from President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt for lenience. Appeals filed by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, then an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, were similarly refused. The convicted men were all released from prison shortly after the end of the war.

Miller initially sought to have the convictions reversed by the U.S. Navy Board of Corrections. Legislation enacted in 1992 ordered the Navy to review the cases, In 1994, Navy Secretary John Dalton upheld the findings of the Judge Advocate General's review, asserting that "prejudice in the first instance resulted in the assignment of African-American sailors to hard, dangerous work, but segregated them and denied them the dignity accorded to others in uniform." Nevertheless, Navy officials concluded that race was not a factor in the trial outcome itself, and therefore the verdicts should remain in effect. That conclusion was upheld by then-Secretary of Defense William Perry.

Congress also passed Miller's legislation in 1992 creating the Port Chicago National Memorial at the site of the explosion near Concord, California. An annual memorial service is held on the site each year with survivors and members of the families of deceased sailors participating. In recent years, the service has become a rallying point for the effort to overturn the convictions.

Earlier this year, Congressman Miller worked with attorneys from the law firm of Morrison Foerster to develop a pardon appeal to the President on behalf of Meeks, one of only three of the 50 convicted sailors known still to be alive. The petition was filed in May, 1999, and has been under review by the Navy, the Pardon Attorney, the Department of Justice and the White House leading up to President Clinton's decision to issue the pardon.

The pardon effort has won broad national support from organizations including the California State Legislature (by unanimous vote), the NAACP national convention, the Black Hollywood Education and Research Center, and the World War II Black Veterans of Great Lakes. Editorial support has come from the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Contra Costa Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Television specials were produced by The Learning Channel and The History Channel, and a film based on the events at Port Chicago was shown earlier this year on NBC.