On March 13, 1975 – In Las Vegas, Nevada, the late Roberto Clemente joins Roy Campanella and twelve other sports figures, living and dead, as this year’s inductees in the Black Athletes’ Hall of Fame.
They wheeled Roy Campanella to the platform in a wheelchair, and he got a standing ovation from the crowd of about 700. “When I was a youngster, I never thought I’d have a chance to play in the big leagues and be inducted into a Black Athlete’s Hall of Fame. Now this has come true,” he said. The former Brooklyn Dodger catching great confined to a wheelchair after a tragic auto accident more than 15 years ago was one of 14 new inductees into the Black Athlete’s Hall of Fame Thursday night. The predominantly black audience from all parts of the country sat in a spacious, thickly carpeted hotel ballroom at a black tie-optional affair to watch the ceremony interspersed with performances by Aretha Franklin and James Brown.
Posthumous awards were presented to former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and former Pittsburgh Pirate outfield great Roberto Clemente, as well as Abe Saperstein, founder of the Harlem Globetrotters. Another posthumous award went to John Henry Lloyd called “the Mack Honus Wagner” when he played in the Mack baseball leagues between 1905 and 1931
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