On October 12, as the Kitty Hawk sailed toward North Vietnam, a Naval investigating officer was questioning crew members about a heated fight that had taken place the night before in Subic Bay in the Phillipines. The fight had resulted in the arrest of live blacks and lout whiles; the only sailors called in for questioning were black. Angry with this kind of discrimination, the blacks who had been questioned later gathered on the deck with other black crewmembers to rap about it, and, nervously overreacting, the brass called in a marine riot squad to break it up. Fights then broke out all over the ship involving over 100 white and black sailors. Twentyfive blacks- and no whites-were charged with "assault and rioting.''
Navy racism was highlighted by the mass resistance of sailors of the USS Constellation. The brass, under pressure to get rid of a number of the crew because of the overcrowded condition of the ship, was attempting nearly exclusively to discharge blacks. Challenging this, on November 3, 80 blacks gathered on deck demanding an audience with the Captain. When he refused to meet with them, other crewmembers joined them and they all staged a sit-down demonstration that lasted through the night and into the next day. At one point, there were over 300 sailors, including whites, sitting in protest.