CONCORD — A large regional park planned at the former naval weapons station could be named after the Black civil rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who defended U.S. Navy servicemen in the 1940s after they were punished for protesting unsafe labor conditions.
It would be the first regional park in Contra Costa County named for a Black person.
The Navy transferred most of 2,500-acre parkland to the East Bay Regional Park District in 2019 — one step in a much larger land-transfer process for the former weapons site.
Originally named the Concord Hills Regional Park, the site could be given the official name “Thurgood Marshall Regional Park – Home of the Port Chicago 50” if adopted by the park district’s board of directors. An executive committee will meet Tuesday afternoon, where it could make a formal recommendation to the board for the new name.
“Staff supports a name that continues to educate the public about the deadly Port Chicago explosion, the bravery of the fifty men [who] took a stand against unsafe and unjust conditions, and the key role that the disaster and mutiny trial the played in the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces,” the committee’s agenda report says.
Park officials had already intended to build a visitor center at the park commemorating the Port Chicago explosion of 1944, which killed 320 sailors and servicemen who were loading a heavy load of munitions onto a cargo vessel when it detonated.
In the disaster’s aftermath, the servicemen at the port — the majority of whom were Black, because the military was racially segregated during World War II — said their leadership had not been trained to oversee the handling of dangerous munitions. They refused to load more munitions until safer working conditions were established.
In retaliation, the Navy convicted 50 protesters of mutiny and sentenced them to 15 years in prison and hard labor. Marshall, then chief counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, appealed their convictions with a strong legal defense.
Among his key arguments, Marshall pointed out that the Navy’s segregation policies ensured that Black men exclusively were expected to carry out the dangerous job of loading munitions. The men were eventually freed after the war, and Marshall’s advocacy ultimately led to desegregation of the military.
“Designation of this park as “Thurgood Marshall – Home of the Port Chicago 50” honors the bravery of the fifty men who organized to protest return to work orders and challenged the U.S. government,” says the staff report in Tuesday’s meeting agenda. “Without their bravery, the story of Port Chicago would not be known, and the advocacy of Thurgood Marshall would never come to be.
Marshall went on to become the first African-American Supreme Court justice.
When consulted by park district staff, residents broadly agreed with the idea of recognizing the the Port Chicago explosion. They also expressed interest in Native American park names. In the agenda report, park district staff recommend “potential programs” to highlight indigenous culture.
Park district staff did not provide comment by deadline on when the regional park in Concord is expected to open.
About two dozen labor, military and Black advocacy organizations have endorsed the name change, while a Change.org petition supporting the new name has received 890 signatures. The petition also calls for neighboring parks to be renamed after the Chupcan people, who are native to Concord.
Victoria Adams, the president of the NAACP’s east Contra Costa County chapter, said in an interview that it was important to name the park after Marshall in remembrance of the “heroes who were brave enough to stand up for what is right.”
“It’s OK that our history is remembered along with everyone else’s,” Adams said. “And it’s OK that we have institutions named after people who have done important things — their stories need to be told.”
