WE know about the boxers, the singers and the athletes, but a new book will tell of the commercial and cultural contribution of black people. IF YOU make it in this city, you'll never be forgotten. There will always be a smile for you here when you return from your triumphs - a kiss on the cheek, a shaking of hands, a pint on the bar courtesy of the landlord, the friendly waves of proud strangers. "All right, son." "Nice to you have you back, luv, among your own kind." And when you die someone will put a blue plaque by the door of the house of your birth and, if you made it really big, they'll erect a statue to your memory, so that you can stand, motionless, for eternity on a spot, where once you breathed. But you don't see the names of many black people on the plinths and the plaques of this cosmopolitan Liverpool, which is so confident in its claim to be "The World in One City". Of course, these things take time. But there has been a black community in Liverpool for more than 270 years and it increased considerably after the American War of Independence, when black slaves were offered their freedom if they served in King George III's Army. After the British defeat, many thought it would be wise to vamoose and they arrived in Liverpool, a bustling port of many costumes and tongues, to make a new start. Their descendants are still here. Behind them there is a trail of success and failure, just as you would find with any nation or race. But black achievements, beyond those in the fields of sport and entertainment, have seldom been recognised. To rectify that, Ray Costello, the writer and academic, is preparing a book of Liverpool's Black Pioneers, the ones who opened the way for their people in business, the professions and politics, and there will be entries in sport and showbusiness as well. It should be said now that many of them were of mixed blood, but felt themselves to be black, at least in part because that was how white people saw them In his book, which should be published at the end of this year or early in 2006, Ray has not imposed a definitive measure of racial blood, such as that applied in totally different circumstances by the Nazis when they were considering the fate of people who had Jewish ancestry. | 
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