Mutinies

Race and the Navy in the 1970's

A young naval officer comes to grips with his feelings about racism, and the struggle to resolve the conflict between the needs of his family, and his career. Based upon real events, it is clear that many race problems in the US Navy were unresolved in the mid-1970’s. Lieutenant (junior grade) Mitch Payne reports to the USS Scarslund, a Navy destroyer long past its prime, ready to work hard and restart his stalled career. He has to navigate treacherous wardroom politics, even as building racial tensions deteriorate. Everything comes to a head when black sailors stage a massed disobedience of orders, hazarding the ship during a difficult docking. Payne, as the ship’s legal officer, is then drawn into the Navy’s prosecution of the ringleaders. The Navy’s ham-fisted efforts to expunge traces of its discriminatory past, very similar to the now discredited critical race theory of today, are described in acid detail. Based on an actual incident that took place on a Navy destroyer in June 1974.