Black Ajax

Tom Molineaux is born enslaved in Virginia and wins his freedom through fighting before travelling to Britain, where the Black boxer and former champion Bill Richmond trains him for the brutal world of Regency prizefighting. Molineaux’s power, discipline and public charisma make him the leading challenger to English champion Tom Cribb and a focus for gamblers, promoters and spectators whose admiration remains inseparable from racism.

The story is reconstructed through conflicting testimony from people who profited from, loved or betrayed Molineaux. His two contests with Cribb become national spectacles in which money, class and racial identity matter as much as skill. Fraser turns a celebrated sporting rivalry into a tragedy about a formerly enslaved man whose talent brings fame without protection from exploitation and decline.