A family connection led the McClure’s to the Alaska Highway in 2013, but traveling the famous road raised issues far more important than family. The racism that distorted the experience of thousands of young, black American soldiers and the fact that they received no credit for their enormous contribution infuriated them. The fact that those men faced up to all the challenges that made the project epic—stood up to racism on top of that, and still delivered inspired them.
Back home in North Carolina, they created a website that told the story of the 93rd in Yukon, designed to locate Alcan veterans or their families; spent four years traveling to archives, visiting the veterans and families, exhaustively researching the black experience on the Highway and writing a book to present it to the world. We Fought the Road, was just published by Epicenter Press.