Builders of the Alcan

Here are the words of General Simon Buckner, commander of the Army in Alaska upon being informed that Engineers 97th Regiment assigned to build the Alaska section of the Alcan Highway would be composed of African American soldiers.  He objected, concerned that the high wages being paid for labor meant they would likely “settle after the war with the natural result that they would interbreed with the Indians and Eskimos and produce an astonishingly objectionable race of mongrels, which