ERASING ROBERTO CLEMENTE.

• Date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Zirin, Dave

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared war upon Roberto Clemente. The Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Famer, who is a revered icon throughout the world--and particularly in Latin America -- earned this passionate reverence by losing his life in a plane crash fifty years ago while delivering emergency aid to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua. His chartered plane went down off the coast of Puerto Rico, and this great tragedy forged the memory of a beloved, just, and kind man. Yet, in Ron DeSantiss Florida, Roberto Clemente is subject to erasure.

In the land of book bannings, empty libraries, and dumbed-down Advanced Placement tests, a children's book about "The Great One" by Jonah Winter and Raul Colon, titled Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was pulled from school library shelves in mid-February in Duval County, which includes the city of Jacksonville.

Only after an uproar did DeSantis address the issue, during an incoherent press conference in which he attacked the media (of...