As an amateur he won gold medals in the light middleweight division at the 1959 Pan American Games and the 1960 Olympics.

He was honored in August 2012 for his life's work by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.

The case was brought by race-black licensed boxing promoter Zeke Wilson against a state sports commission headed by the race-black chairman for damage reparations and punitive redress after his right to conduct professional boxing events was violated.

[4] In this case, race-white boxing commissioner William Pender performed direct discriminatory acts, while the race-black commission chairman Wilbert McClure failed to provide the promoter sufficient protection under his authority and cooperated in the unjust cancellation of a series of boxing events, causing financial harm to the promoter.

McClure defeated Carmelo Bossi to win the light middleweight gold medal for the United States at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy.