Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King Jr.: In Service of Others

“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on earth.” – Roberto Clemente1

 

Death comes to us all. It may happen when we are young and carefree, when we are middle-aged with the weight of the world on our shoulders, or when we are old and living life day to day. Martin Luther King Jr. was 39 years old when he died. Roberto Clemente was 38.

King was gunned down on the balcony of his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was in Memphis to march in support of striking sanitation workers. It was 6:05 P.M. on April 4, 1968. King was on his way to dinner at the house of Memphis minister Samuel “Billy” Kyles, but first he was scheduled to speak with members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who were waiting in the parking lot below his room. When he stepped out on the balcony, a single shot from an assassin’s gun struck King in the face. He was pronounced dead an hour later.2

Clemente was killed in a plane crash off the Puerto Rican coast on December 31, 1972. He was on his way to Nicaragua. That country had suffered a devastating earthquake, and Clemente had collected supplies on his own accord and decided to deliver them personally. The plane took off at 9 P.M. and made it to an altitude of only 200 feet before apparently suffering engine failure and plummeting into the ocean. Rescue crews were never able to find the bodies.3

Since their untimely passing, both Dr. King and Clemente have been revered as great humanitarians. And even in the moments of their deaths, they were fighting for the betterment of humanity.

A CROSSING OF PATHS

Clemente signed a big-league contract when he was a teenager and came to the US mainland from Puerto Rico in 1954. This was at the beginning of the Civil Rights Era and Clemente experienced Jim Crow segregation for the first time during spring training in Florida.4 In Puerto Rico, integration was the status quo and Clemente wasn’t used to being unable to eat in the same restaurants or go to the same movie theaters as his White teammates. Clemente said he learned that being a person of color was “bad over here [United States].”5

The following year, 1955, King and other civil-rights activists were arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for leading a boycott of a transportation company that required nonwhites to give their seats to White passengers. The boycott attracted national attention. King went on to lead many nonviolent protests and demonstrations, and fought for the civil rights of people of color until his assassination over 10 years later.

Since Clemente’s first experience of racial inequality, he had become more enterprising in the face of this gross disproportion. As his social awakening continued, he listed Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the top people he admired.6 The beginning of Clemente’s great esteem for King began after he witnessed a speech by King on February 16, 1962, in San German Puerto Rico. Afterward King came to Clemente’s farm on the outskirts of his hometown, Carolina.7 It is not known what the two discussed, but it is clear that Clemente came away from the meeting with a newfound respect for King.

A VOICE

Clemente’s admiration for King “was not his philosophy of nonviolence, but his ability to give a voice to the voiceless.”8 He said that King “changed the whole system of American style. He put the people, the ghetto people, the people who didn’t have nothing to say in those days, they started saying what they would have liked to say for many years that nobody listened to. Now with this man, these people come down to the place where they were supposed to be but people didn’t want them, and sit down as if they were white and call attention to the whole world. Now that wasn’t only the black people, but the minority people. The people who didn’t have anything, and they had nothing to say in those days because they didn’t have any power, they started saying things and they started picketing, and that’s the reason I say [King] changed the whole world …”9

After the Pirates’ victory in the 1971 World Series, Clemente took his chance to give a voice to the voiceless as Dr. King had. He had carried the Pirates on his back through much of the Series, and after their victory he chose to address the media and the world in Spanish. This was the first time anybody had spoken Spanish on a nationally televised English-speaking broadcast in the. United States. He spoke to his family, saying, “En el dia mas grande de mi vida, para los nenes la bendicion. [In the most important day of my life, I give blessings to my boys and ask that my parents give their blessing].”10 Not only did his family hear him, but he managed to give a voice to the Spanish-speaking world.

RESPECT

Dr. King’s passing affected many people in many ways. It caused great sadness, suffering, and anger. Riots broke out in dozens of US cities. The country was in turmoil. Jackie Robinson, interviewed the night of King’s death, said, “It is the most disturbing and distressing thing we’ve had to face in a long time.”11 What does one do in the face of such tragedy? They mourn. They pay respect.

The day after King’s assassination, the Pirates, who had 11 people of color on their team, the most in the major leagues, held meetings spurred by Clemente. They decided that they wouldn’t play the first two games of the season against the Houston Astros. “We are doing this because we white and black players respect what Dr. King has done for mankind.… We owe this gesture to his memory and his ideals,” said Clemente and pitcher Dave Wickersham in a joint statement.12 After the players’ decision to postpone the start of their 1968 season, Major League Baseball also postponed the remaining games on April 8 and April 9 (the day of King’s funeral), choosing instead to start the season on April 10.

LEGACY

Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King Jr. shared a common bond. They believed that all people are equal regardless of their skin color or their standing in life. Clemente was inspired by King in 1962 and continued to be until his death in 1972. Even now, a half-century after Clemente’s and King’s deaths, the United States and the world still celebrate the social justice that these two worked hard for.

 

Notes

1 Sean Collier, “This MLK Day, Learn About the Humanitarian Side of Roberto Clemente,” Pittsburgh Magazine, January 14, 2021. h​ttps:​//www​.pitt​sburg​hmaga​zine.​com/t​his-m​lk-da​y-lea​rn-ab​out-t​he-hu​manit​arian​-side​-of-r​obert​o-cle​men​te/.

2 “Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Martin Luther King Jr. Encyclopedia, Stanford University. h​ttps:​//kin​ginst​itute​.stan​ford.​edu/e​ncycl​opedi​a/ass​assin​ation​-mart​in-lu​ther-​king-​jr.

3 “Baseball Star Roberto Clemente Dies in Plane Crash,” h​ttps:​//www​.hist​ory.c​om/th​is-da​y-in-​histo​ry/ba​sebal​l-sta​r-die​s-in-​plane​-cr​ash.

4 Christopher Klein, “How Puerto Rican Baseball Icon Roberto Clemente Left a Legacy Off the Field,” H​istor​y.​com, October 13, 2021. h​ttps:​//www​.hist​ory.c​om/ne​ws/ro​berto​-clem​ente-​human​itari​an-ac​compl​ishme​nts-p​ittsb​urgh-​pir​ates.

5 Dave Zirin, “Common Bond for Uncommon Men: Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King,” C​ommon​Dream​s.​org, April 7, 2008. h​ttps:​//www​.comm​ondre​ams.o​rg/vi​ews/2​008/0​4/07/​commo​n-bon​d-unc​ommon​-men-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-and​-mart​in-lu​ther-​king.

6 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 148.

7 Kevin B. Blackistone, “‘More Than a Ballplayer’: After MLK Shooting, Roberto Clemente Halted MLB Opening Day 1968,” Washington Post, March 28, 2018. (online)

8 Maraniss, 221.

9 Maraniss, 221.

10 Maraniss, 264.

11 Bill Francis, “National Tragedy Brought Baseball to a Halt for Two Days in 1968,” National Baseball Hall of Fame, h​ttps:​//bas​eball​hall.​org/d​iscov​er/ma​rtin-​luthe​r-kin​g-jrs​-assa​ssina​tion-​broug​ht-ba​sebal​l-to-​a-hal​t-in-​1968.

12 h​ttps:​//bas​eball​hall.​org/d​iscov​er/ma​rtin-​luthe​r-kin​g-jrs​-assa​ssina​tion-​broug​ht-ba​sebal​l-to-​a-hal​t-in-​1968.