Also in the exhibition, which is sponsored by Merseyside Police Community Relations and includes white and Asian faces as well as black, is Toussaint L'Ouverture, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 which established it as a free republic.
"He's the only man in recorded history to have freed a country from slavery, and to do that he had to defeat the armies of the French, and the French army under Napoleon was probably the most experienced army in the world. He then defeated the armies of the Spanish and English.
"To do that with ex-slaves is a remarkable achievement, and he is probably one of the most remarkable men to have ever lived.
"He was a very gentle-natured man. One day when he was riding, a little orphan girl called him ‘Papa! Papa!' and he put her on his horse and carried her home and said ‘this little girl has done me the honour of calling me Papa, please welcome her as my child'." Mr Lalljie's interest in these figures began when he wrote a biography of the St Lucia-born Nobel prize winner Sir Arthur Lewis. After gaining a scholarship to the London School of Economics at the age of 18, he graduated with the institution's highest ever mark and began lecturing there at the age of 22.
"He went on to become the youngest person in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth to be appointed full professor of economics at a British university. He was 33. If the Second World War hadn't taken place, he would have got there in his 20s," says Mr Lalljie.
"They talk of black boys under-achieving, but it only happens in England, it doesn't happen in the West Indies. So there's a problem here.
"Children should learn that by education they can do anything and they too have a role to play in society.
"It's far easier now. When these people did it, some of them didn't have electricity to study by, they didn't have calculators, let alone computers."
An inscription on the back of one photograph sums it up. Taken in 1935, it shows Captain Andrew Cipriani, the first national hero of Trinidad and Tobago, with Albert Marryshow, who helped Britain recruit West Indians to fight in World War II.
The wording reads: "Keep this photograph safe so that generations to come shall treasure it in their loving memory."
* PANTHEON of Outstanding West Indian Heroes is on display at Liverpool Central Library until the end of October.
