Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire

Who was Learie Constantine? And what can he tell us about the politics of race and race relations in 20th-century Britain and the Empire? Through examining the life, times and opinions of this Trinidadian cricketer-turned-politician, Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire explores the centrality of race in British politics and society. Unlike conventional biographical studies of Constantine, this unique approach to his life, and the racially volatile context in which it was lived, moves away from the ‘good man’ narrative commonly attributed to his rise to pre-eminence as a spokesman against racial discrimination and as the first black peer in the House of Lords. Through detailing how Constantine’s idea of ‘assimilation’ was criticized, then later rejected by successive activists in the politics of race, Jeff rey Hill off ers an alternative and more sophisticated analysis of Constantine’s contributions to, and complex relationship with, the fight against racial inequalities inherent in British domestic and imperial society.

Table of Contents:
1. Constantine 2. Trinidad 3. Cricket 4. Nelson 5. Writer 6. Race Relations 7. Colour Bar 8. Race Politics 9. The BBC 10. Black Englishman Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Jeffrey Hill is Emeritus Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies at De Montfort University, UK. He is the author of Sport: A Historical Introduction (2010), Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain (2002) Nelson: Politics, Economy, Community (1997).

Review :
Widely respected as a sports historian, Jeffrey Hill demonstrates his importance as a writer of political and cultural biography with this scrupulously researched and finely argued profile of an unjustly forgotten figure. The Lancashire mill town of Nelson provides the geographical and conceptual pivot for this enthralling narrative of sport-inflected border-crossing, both as Learie Constantine’s adopted (and adoptive) home and as a dependable point of reference in his complex mobility between the colonial Trinidad of his youth, the independent nation that he helped bring into being – alongside his direct contemporary and lifelong friend C.L.R. James – and the racially conflicted Britain that he sought to influence first as a sportsman, then as social commentator, politician and diplomat. Jeffrey Hill’s monograph makes a compelling case for the contemporary reassessment of a multiply pioneering sportsman whose record of public service in the sphere of race relations, on both sides of an increasingly ‘Black’ Atlantic, is all the more worthy of attention, and appreciation, in our own challenging times