In the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for athletes to challenge racial boundaries. Yet the fact that Trinidadian cricketer Learie Constantine (1901–1971), whose blackness, along with his unconventional yet respectful approach to the game of cricket, earned him entrée into the top ranks of British society, managed to sustain that position to the end of his life is unusual. In his most recent monograph, renowned sports and cultural historian Jeffrey Hill explores why that was so, while arguing that from the 1930s through the 1960s Constantine was instrumental in both drawing attention to racial discrimination in Britain and keeping the issue in the public eye.

Hill makes it clear from the outset that his intention is not to write a straightforward biography. Instead, he focuses on Constantine's role “as a marker of historical change” while also filling the gaps earlier studies have left in Constantine's story (x). In the first four chapters of the book, he deals with Constantine's childhood and young adulthood as he strove for upward mobility in Trinidad, and then, from 1929, as a cricket professional playing for the Nelson Cricket Club in Lancashire, England. To explore Constantine's post-cricketing life from 1940 until his death in 1971, Hill switches to a thematic approach, devoting the remaining chapters to his roles as writer (of nine books), social worker, broadcaster, government minister, and public figure who served on the BBC board and the Race Relations Board and received numerous honors, including a British peerage.

Constantine was transnational (living half of his life in England, half in Trinidad), yet as a middle-class product of the British Caribbean he proudly identified himself as a “Black Englishman” long before he arrived in Britain itself. As his father taught him to love the game of cricket, Constantine adopted the English idea of fair play embedded in the game as his moral code. As Hill explains, Constantine's “Englishness” would later allow him to appeal to the British public, while his pleas to white Britons to become their best selves proved crucial to his success in drawing public attention to racism in Britain.

Identifying as a black Englishman was not unusual for middle-class colonials in this era, but Hill's exploration of how Constantine's early cricketing life in Trinidad developed both this identity and his approach to racial injustice is illuminating. As Hill explains, color determined a man's access to top West Indian cricket clubs, what role he would play on the cricket field, and who captained the teams. Dark-skinned Constantine was barred from top Trinidadian cricket clubs, yet his unusual talent allowed him to play positions, such as batter, that were normally reserved for white men. Early on, then, Constantine learned that it was possible to challenge racial hierarchy, at least as an individual.

But although his sporting talent gave him privileges on the cricket pitch, Constantine struggled to make a living in the West Indies, where the cult of the amateur ensured that no one could earn a living playing the game. When his skill drew the attention of a league in the North of England looking for a star player, Constantine accepted the offer—not to challenge Britain's social structure, but to make a decent living for himself and his family. Nevertheless, as Hill explains, his success as a professional cricketer, drawing huge crowds and national attention to the Northern League, laid the groundwork for a structural shift in the British game by challenging the elitist credo that only amateurs (gentlemen of leisure) could truly play the game.

The racism Constantine encountered in Britain is well documented, not least by himself, but his fame cushioned him against many of the hardships faced by people of color. It was not until the Second World War, when he was working for the government to assist West Indians in Liverpool, that he encountered the realities of life for ordinary black people in Britain. Constantine's moral outrage over this discrimination led him to write his 1954 book, Colour Bar, which was, as Hill puts it, “a remorseless exposure of injustice in the name of white supremacy” (112). Yet Hill's analysis makes it clear that Constantine's approach to solving the problem then, as in every other forum in which he dealt with race in Britain over the next fifteen years, was simplistic, relying on top-down negotiation and his personal plea to white people to do the right thing.

To be fair, as Hill explains, few people in mid-twentieth century Britain recognized the structural dimensions of racism. Furthermore, as Hill points out, Constantine's service as minister in Trinidad's government from mid-1954 through 1961 removed him from Britain in an era critical to the development of British race relations studies. Not only did he miss the Notting Hill and Nottingham riots and the run-up to the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, but he was not on hand to engage with scholars as they created the British field of race relations.

Furthermore, Hill convincingly argues that despite the significant role Constantine played in bringing the problem of racism in Britain to broad attention, he was never a radical activist, despite the later claims of his fellow Trinidadian and lifelong friend C. L. R. James. He disliked party politics and, despite his love for his leftist “hometown” of Nelson, sat as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords. While he tirelessly used the contacts available to him to help ordinary people, his approach was “old-school” elite networking rather than on-the-ground activism.

In short, Hill presents an athlete who, because of his deep devotion to the British concept of “fair play,” accepted the role of, as W. E. B. Du Bois would put it, a “race man.” He used his position as a “model black figure” to encourage white Britons to recognize that racism existed in British Isles, and to assist black people who did not have his advantages (166). As Hill points out, moving Britons toward acknowledgement of racism as a problem that needed to be solved was a major achievement.