As the coun­try com­mem­o­rates 183 years of Eman­ci­pa­tion, ac­knowl­edge­ment of the con­tin­ued con­tri­bu­tion of the African com­mu­ni­ty to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is war­rant­ed.

Con­ven­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions- right­ly so- tend to fo­cus on con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of the econ­o­my, ed­u­ca­tion, pol­i­tics and cul­ture such as mu­sic and per­form­ing arts. It is now posit­ed that Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans par­tic­i­pa­tion and per­for­mances in sport is al­so wor­thy of recog­ni­tion. It should not be tak­en for grant­ed but cel­e­brat­ed.

Ar­guably the best ex­am­ple of African achieve­ment in the sport­ing land­scape of the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean is the West In­dies men crick­et team -es­pe­cial­ly from 1980 to the mid-1990s- first­ly led by Clive Lloyd and then Vi­vian Richards. Their achieve­ments in­stilled a great sense of self-con­fi­dence and be­lief not on­ly among lo­cal and re­gion­al crick­eters but among politi­cians, busi­ness peo­ple and the wider pop­u­la­tion. They were def­i­nite­ly among my role mod­els in my for­ma­tive years in the 1980s.

As we cel­e­brate an­oth­er year of Eman­ci­pa­tion from the bru­tal­i­ty and cal­lous­ness of slav­ery, it’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty to can­did­ly recog­nise the skills, tal­ent, in­dus­tri­ous­ness and ex­pres­sions of Afro-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans in sport. The list of achiev­ers is in­ex­haus­tive and space is lim­it­ed, there­fore, the names here­in re­flect the au­thor’s sub­jec­tiv­i­ty at the time of writ­ing.

Box­ing:

· Claude Noel first world cham­pi­on, Mex­i­can Rodol­fo Gon­za­lez to win the WBA World Light­weight ti­tle, 1981.

· Leslie Stew­art won the WBA World Light Heavy­weight ti­tle in 1987 de­feat­ing Mar­vin "Pops" John­son.

· Giselle Sa­landy mul­ti­ple World cham­pi­on- WBA, WBC and WI­BA mid­dle weight ti­tles.

· Michael Alexan­der- Bronze medal­ist Light Wel­ter­weight, Pan Amer­i­can Games 2019; mul­ti­ple medal­ists at Pan Amer­i­can, CAC and Com­mon­wealth Games.

· Yolande Pom­pey; Ed­die Mar­celle; Michael Par­sons; Kurt Sinette; Kert­son Man­swell; Nigel Paul; Aaron Prince.

Body Build­ing: Dar­rem Charles, Michael Her­cules

Crick­et: Bri­an Lara, World record hold­er for the high­est First-Class score (501 not out) and high­est Test score (400 not out); Sir Learie Con­stan­tine; Bernard Julien; Ian Bish­op; Louise Browne; An­tho­ny Gray; Ann Browne-John; Kieron Pol­lard; Dwayne Bra­vo; Dar­ren Bra­vo; Shan­non Gabriel; Stephanie Pow­ers; Cyril Li­onel Robert (CLR) James- au­thor of the clas­si­cal oeu­vre “Be­yond a Bound­ary” 1963.

Cy­cling: Nicholas Paul - men's sprint cham­pi­on Pan Amer­i­can Games, 2019; Njisane Phillip, a nine-time Pan Amer­i­can medal­list; Maxwell Cheese­man; Hyl­ton “Bar­racu­da” Mitchell; Roger Smart.

Dis­tance Run­ning: Lynette "Granny” Luces; Toya Nero; Michael Alexan­der; Cur­tis Cox.

Foot­ball: Ken­nya Cord­ner; Dwight Yorke; Alvin Corneal; De­von­ish Paul; Sed­ley Joseph; Lin­coln Phillips; Ever­ald “Gal­ly” Cum­mings; Rus­sell Lat­apy; Leon­son Lewis; Philbert Jones; Mau­rice Al­ibey; Ker­ry Jame­son; Earl ‘Spi­der­man’ Carter; Clay­ton Ince; Mar­vin An­drews; Clay­ton Mor­ris; Dex­ter Fran­cis; Bri­an Williams; Sha­ka His­lop; Stern John.

Golf: Car­los "Sexy" Baynes.

Hock­ey: Kwand­wane Browne- as­sis­tant coach Great Britain Hock­ey team- Tokyo Olympics 2020.

Net­ball: 1979 World Cup win­ning team - In­grid Black­man; An­gela Burke-Brown; Peg­gy Cas­tana­da; Heather Charleau; Cyre­nia Charles; Mar­cia Dim­soy; Jen­nifer Nurse; Sher­ril Pe­ters; Eu­ge­nia Theo­dosia ‘Jean” Pierre; Veryl Prec­sod; Althea Thomas-Luces; and Jen­nifer Williams. Saman­tha Wal­lace.

Swim­ming: Shan­ntol Ince; Siob­han Crop­per; Cer­ian Gibbs.

Ta­ble Ten­nis- Ver­na Ed­wards; Aleena Ed­wards; Li­onel Dar­cueil Sea­mus Clarke, Dex­ter St. Louis

Ten­nis- Lystra Lewis, Bev­er­ly Cor­bie, Ivor Grazette.

Track and Field:

· Hasley Craw­ford - gold medal 100 me­tres Mon­tre­al Olympics 1976

· Ke­ston Bled­man, Marc Burns, Em­manuel Cal­len­der, Richard Thomp­son - gold in the men's 4x100m re­lay, Bei­jing 2008.

· Keshorn Wal­cott - gold medal javelin Lon­don Olympics 2012, Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to 2015; bronze medal, javelin, Rio de Janeiro, 2016.

· Je­hue Gor­don - gold medal 400m hur­dle IAAF World Cham­pi­onship in Moscow, Rus­sia in 2014

· Cleopa­tra Borel - gold shot put, Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to 2015.

· Jar­rin Solomon, Ren­ny Quow, Machel Ce­de­nio and Lalonde Gor­don, 4x400m gold Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to 2015.

· Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Re­yare Thomas and Se­moy Hack­ett 4x100m bronze, 1AAF World Cham­pi­onship in Bei­jing, Chi­na, 2015.

· Khal­i­fa St Fort, sil­ver 100m IAAF World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship in Cali, Colom­bia, 2015.

· Ed­win Roberts; Ed­win Skin­ner; Kent Bernard; Wen­dell Mot­t­ley - Men's 4x400m bronze, 1964 Toyko Olympics.

. Ato Boldon - four-time Olympic medal win­ner; Dar­rel Brown; Ron­del Sor­ril­lo.

· Michelle-Lee Ahye - gold medal 100m at Com­mon­wealth Games 2018- Gold Coast, Aus­tralia.

· De­on Lendore; Jereem Richards; Asa Gue­vara and Machel Ce­de­no, 4x400 gold - World Re­lays in Yoko­hama, Japan, 2019.

Weightlift­ing: Rod­ney Wilkes was the coun­try’s first medal­ist at the Olympics win­ning the sil­ver medal in the feath­er­weight cat­e­go­ry at the 1948 Lon­don Games. At the 1952 Helsin­ki Games, he won bronze at the same event. Lennox Kil­go­ur, bronze medal­list 1952 Helsin­ki Games.

Such con­tin­u­ous ac­com­plish­ments are a source of em­pow­er­ment and pride that must be con­tin­u­ous­ly en­cour­aged, em­braced and cel­e­brat­ed by all. The re­al­i­ty al­so calls for a so­ci­o­log­i­cal un­der­stand­ing of the so­cial con­struc­tion of sport that will al­low for a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the ques­tions of ‘why’ and ‘how’. Such in­sights will serve in build­ing a de­tailed knowl­edge stock of the his­tor­i­cal and so­cial dy­nam­ics of sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go.