Whereas Roberto Clemente Walker was born on August 18, 1934, to Don Melchor Clemente and Luisa Walker in Barrio San Antón, Carolina, Puerto Rico, as the youngest of 7 children; Whereas his mother, Luisa, was a laundress and his father, Don Melchor, was a sugarcane plantation worker; Whereas Clemente’s professional idol was Monte Irvin, a pioneering Black left fielder and first baseman who played winter ball in Puerto Rico, playing for the San Juan Senators; Whereas Clemente excelled in athletics as a youngster, and at the age of 17 was playing for the Santurce Cangrejeros Crabbers of the Puerto Rican Baseball League; Whereas, in 1952, at the ripe age of 18, the Dodgers signed Clemente to their Triple-A minor league team, the Montreal Royals, in Montreal for a season; Whereas, in 1954, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Clemente in the first round of the Major League Baseball Rule 5 draft; Whereas Pirates center fielder Earl Smith wore jersey number 21 until he parted ways with the team in April 1955, and Clemente wore number 13 until then; Whereas, in 1955, Clemente made his Major League debut as he went on to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates starting as a right fielder; Whereas when the team traveled to Richmond, Virginia, for games or Florida for spring training, Clemente encountered Jim Crow laws for the first time when the Black players had to stay at a separate inferior hotel and were refused the option to dine with their White counterparts; Whereas it is known that during one of his first games, Clemente protested angrily when fans yelled racial insults at one of his teammates; Whereas Clemente was treated like a foreigner, disparaged for his Spanish language, and discriminated against for his skin color; Whereas it is reported that many people mocked Clemente’s heavy Latin accent, quoting him with phonetic spelling rather than merely reporting what he said