The Port Chicago disaster highlighted systemic racial inequality in the Navy. A year before the disaster, in mid-1943, the U.S. Navy had over 100,000 African Americans in service but not one black officer. In the months following the disaster, the "Pittsburgh Courier", a newspaper with a large nationwide subscription primarily of African Americans, related the incident and the subsequent mutiny trial in their Double V campaign, a push for victory over not just the Axis powers but also over racial inequality at home. The mutiny trial was seen as underscoring the tense race relations in the armed forces at the time.