In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizedconstruction of the Alaska Highway to establish an overland route to supply Alaskafor the war against Japan. After the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor in June of 1942, invading the Aleutian Islands of Attu on June 6 and Kiska on June 7, pressure ramped up to complete the project. But nearly all the Army's engineer regiments were elsewhere in the war effort.
“All of a sudden, the road became very, very important, and they had nothing left but black troops.”
Fairbanks journalism professor and historian Lael Morgan was the instigator of the Alaska Highway Memorial Project. In 2017,in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the highway, KUAC reporter Tim Ellis interviewed Morgan about her extensive research.
“I discovered a lot more about the Blacks who had built the Alaska Highway, and they’d been completely written out of history.”
The military operated under laws of segregation — which included rules that African-Americans could only be sent to warm climates — as well as the prejudice that Black workers were not qualified as engineers.
Roosevelt made the unprecedented decision to post three regiments of African-American engineers-- the 93rd, 95th, and 97th, as well as the 388th battalion, about 3,000 Black soldiers — to work alongside four white regiments.
Christine and Dennis McClure describe the role race played in the construction of the highway in two books: We Fought the Road and A Different Race.
