Navy RTC Great Lakes — Local services in North Chicago

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ As a proud U.S. Navy veteran, I’m honored to have trained at Naval Station Great Lakes. But history must be faced with truth and courage.

I am the founder of National Port Chicago Remembrance Day, and the inaugural commemoration will take place on July 17, 2025 — exactly 81 years after the tragic Port Chicago Disaster of 1944.

320+ sailors, the majority of them Black American (Freedmen), were killed in a preventable munitions explosion. 50 brave men known as the Port Chicago 50 stood up against unsafe and unjust conditions and were court-martialed for “Mutiny” by the United States Navy.

It was a deep injustice for the United States Navy to simply hand the families of these men a piece of paper saying they were exonerated on July 17, 2024 but no financial reparations or meaningful institutional restoration. After decades of sacrifice, they deserved more.

Every sailor should be taught this in boot camp. I respectfully call on @USNAVY, @NavyRTC, and @SECNAV to honor them properly through education, justice, and remembrance.

🇺🇸 May the Port Chicago fallen and the Port Chicago 50 rest in eternal peace.

— Jahadu S. Rahman II U.S. Navy Veteran | Veteran Advocate Founder, National Port Chicago Remembrance Day Author, The Port Chicago Disaster/ The Port Chicago 50 U.S. NAVY RTC curriculum in collaboration with the Port Chicago Alliance.

[https://portchicagoalliance.org/]

#NationalPortChicagoRemembranceDay #PortChicago50 #HonorThemInBootCamp #JusticeForThe320

Addendum: THE INTEGRATION OF THE NEGRO INTO THE UNITED STATES NAVY, 1776-1947, WITH A BRIEF HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, BY LT. DENNIS DENMARK NELSON, USNR, 1948

Links to book: [https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/lihpp-001-002#?image_identifier=LIHPP-001-002-p0001]

Addendum: NAVPERS-15092 – Guide to Command of Negro Naval Personnel Restored & preserved by a retired U.S. Navy veteran for historical truth. In honor of the Black American (Freedmen) sailors who served.

NAVPERS 15092 (American Freedmen Restoration Edition)

Link to NAVPERS...

Beautiful trip to see my brave and handsome son complete bootcamp. I will tell you that you have to be somewhat of an Internet sleuth to put all of the moving pieces into order and make it to a graduation that the recruits don't have enough time to inform the family of so everything coming together was nothing short than a miracle from God. I will give RTC best standing renovation because they did think very thoroughly prior to putting all of the information needed on the internet but the caveat in that is that a lot of people are not internet savvy so let's come up with something maybe a helpline that just place information that would be great. For

the families that are ESL or very limited English or not internet savvy you know there's a whole group of those people walking around outside. Thank you for preparing my son for the rest of his life...

Not a great restaurant. The food was not good but not bad. The waiters were constantly screaming at me about everything. I had to stay there for a little over 2 months. I got three meals a day but I wasn't allowed to say a word at the table. I wasn't really allowed to talk anywhere because of those waiters. They would rip you apart for anything. At the very end they gave me a hat and sent me to another place to work. Then finally to a ship to work with really bad food. Although the meals weren't bad, I question if it was worth...