“The Great One”

August 18, 1934: Roberto Clemente Born
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▪Born Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker in Carolina, Puerto Rico

▪Clemente began playing baseball for a Puerto Rican Baseball League around the age of seventeen

▪Clemente signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers around the age of eighteen, a couple of years later he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates, he would play with this team for the remainder of his career

▪In 1971, at the age of thirty-seven, Clemente won MVP after leading the Pirates back to the World Series

▪Clemente was a member of the 3000-Hit club becoming the eleventh player to every do so in 1972

▪Clemente held baseball clinics for children, was a humanitarian, and aspired to be a great role model for Latinos

▪Clemente was nicknamed, “The Great One”

▪In 1972 Clemente died in an airplane crash on his way to Puerto Rico to help after an earthquake hit the island

▪Clemente was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, making him the first Latin America and Caribbean player to be inducted

▪The Clemente Museum was established in 2007 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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Book Feature: Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates (2005)
Written by: Jonah Winter
Illustrated by: Raúl Colón

Polar Explorer!

August 8, 1866: Matthew Henson Born
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▪Born in Maryland

▪Orphaned by his parents, Henson went to sea at the age of twelve as a cabin boy

▪Over five years the sea captain taught Henson how to read and write, as well as navigate the boat

▪Henson met navel engineer Robert E. Peary while working in a hat store in Washington, D.C., Peary was determined to be the first man to reach the North Pole

▪Peary led an Artic expedition team and Henson soon joined them

▪Henson’s first Artic expedition was to Greenland

▪On the expeditions Henson fixed the sleds, hunted, and traded with the Inuit, who gave him the nickname, “Mahri-Pahluk”

▪For more than twenty years Henson would accompany Peary on expeditions in the Artic

▪In 1909 Henson, Peary, and four Inuit men reached the North Pole, Henson the first to reach, planted the United States flag

▪Henson wrote a book about his life as an explorer called, “A Negro Explorer at the North Pole” (1912)

▪In 1945 Henson was honored with a Navy medal

▪Henson passed away in 1955, in 1988 Henson and his wife were reburied in the Arlington National Cemetery beside Peary
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Book Feature: I, Matthew Henson (2007)
Written by: Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrated by: Eric Velasquez
✔On our To Be Read List
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Additional Reading: Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-Discoverer of the North Pole (2015)
Written by: Deborah Hopkinson
Illustrated by: Stephen Alcorn
💯Read & Recommended

The Right to Vote!

August 6, 1965: The Voting Rights Act Signed Into Law
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▪The 15th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, prohibited states from denying male citizens the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude

▪Despite the 15th Amendment, African Americans were prevented from exercising their constitutional right to vote through the implementation of literacy test, poll taxes, intimidation, threats of violence and actual violence

▪On March 7, 1965 a peaceful march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery turned violent when the marchers were attacked by state troopers

▪After the March President Lyndon B. Johnson called for voting rights legislation

▪President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965 in the presence of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders

▪The Act banned the use of literacy test and provided for federal oversight of voter resgistration in certain areas, and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to investigate the use of poll taxes
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Book Feature: Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (2015)
Written by: Jonah Winter
Illustrated by: Shane W. Evans