CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA (July 21, 2024) — As organizers prepared for Port Chicago Weekend, news broke that the U.S. Secretary of the Navy had officially exonerated the Port Chicago 50, the Black sailors who had been charged with mutiny after refusing to return to work following a 1944 munitions explosion that killed 320 people.

“Today, our country moves one step closer to fulfilling its founding promise of equality and justice for all,” said Congressman Mark DeSaulnier, who has tirelessly pressed Washington authorities to right the wrongs at the Concord facility.

Port Chicago Weekend featured music, art, theater, exhibits and entertainment in various cities across the Bay Area from July 18-21.

Looking for gold: Rower Kara Kohler and wrestler Amit Elor will represent our area at the Paris Olympics. This will be the third Olympics for Clayton’s Kohler, while former College Park star Elor will be competing on the world stage for the first time.

Meanwhile, the College Park boys’ wrestling team had the highest collective grade point average of any boys’ wrestling team in the state this past school year. Coach Jim Keck’s team had a 3.82 GPA. “So proud of these young men,” Keck said. “They are winners on the mat, in the community and in the classroom.”

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In the garden and at the market: Don’t just grab the hose because the weather is hot. Now is the time to go to the farmers market and look for delicious home-grown tomatoes.

In the entertainment world: There’s still time to enjoy Clayton’s Concerts at The Grove; local theaters offer one-act plays, plus soap opera dramas; Contra Costa’s Tapestry Choir tours Ireland; a primer on how musicians bottle their magic; Clayton’s JOR Fine Art Gallery hosts the exhibit “Radiant Visions”; and fear reigns in “Inside Out 2” and “Quiet Place: Day One.”

Back to school: School supply drive on July 27 in Pittsburgh.

From the police: Pleasant Hill, Clayton celebrate National Night Out; Pleasant Hill Police say goodbye to K-9 Officer Bodie; and the final report from the Concord Police Department.

Letter to the editor: Biased by pioneers?

Death notices: Ronnie Carroll Peterson, Marsha Jean York, Gerald “Jerry” Cabral and Jeanne Elise Kirchhoff Boyd, co-founder of the Clayton Community Library.

From the Mayor of Concord: Art and history will outlive us.

From the Mayor of Pleasant Hill: The library has become a community center.

Read previous episodes of “So This Happened…”: Click here.

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Bev Britton

Bev Britton graduated from the University of North Dakota with a degree in journalism and moved to the Bay Area with her future husband, Jim, in 1986. She was an editor at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek before becoming managing editor of the Contra Costa Sun in Lafayette in 1995. She retired from the newsroom in 2001, but an ad for the Clayton Pioneer lured her back. The family moved to Lake Wildwood in the Gold Country a few years ago, but her work at the Pioneer keeps her in touch with her old neighborhoods in Concord and Clayton.