Black Puerto Rican Tag

Inktober 8 – Roberto Clemente

Roberto was one of the best baseball players to step on the mound. He was born in 1934 in Barrio San Antón of Puerto Rico and began playing ball at an early age. Baseball is huge in Cuba, PR, the Dominican Republic and many other Latino & Caribbean countries. Clemente joined an amateur league in his teens and by the time he was 18 played for the national team Santurce. A major league team called the Brooklyn Dogers came to PR to play and offered him a spot. He bumped around after moving north and landed on the Pittsburg Pirates where he made a name for himself. He had a 353 bating average, he played in the world series, got 240 home runs, played with some of the greatest and was the first Afro Latino player in the league after the likes of Jackie Robinson. He died in a plane crash at an early age but was inducted into the baseball hall of fame and opened the door for many Latinos to join the MLB, which now has hundreds of players from Puerto Rico and other countries.

Sources: 21-Wilfred Santiago, Wikipedia

Peep this: Lolita Lebron

Inktober 8 – Arturo Schomburg

The way I first heard about Arturo Schomburg was from living in NYC. And I was 26/27 when I first moved to NYC. One of the reasons I think ethnic studies is so important in all schools at all levels is that both white and children of color are getting a fraction of their history. Imagine how many people still don’t know about him, the center, or his work. This brother was Afro-Latino. What does that mean? He was born in Puerto Rico, spoke spanish but was Black. Why? Because Africans were stolen from the continent and dragged to work in slavery in the US and caribbean and South America. Arturo was a journalist and a scholar who collected articles, papers, and books about who Blacks and Afro-Latinos are. He collected so much of it that it became the basis for a library in Harlem where countless people have gone to research and go back to find out who we are. One of the reasons why he searched for our history is because a teacher told him that he and his people had no history. And if you look out most forms of media today that depict or retell history-it is like they’re saying the same thing. One day we’ll see a narrative film about him.

Peep this: Puerto Rico book