Claudia Jones

Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black nationalist, adopting the name Jones as "self-protective disinformation". Due to the political persecution of Communists in the US, she was deported in 1955 and subsequently lived in the United Kingdom. Upon arriving in the UK, she immediately joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and would remain a member for the rest of her life. She then founded Britain's first major black newspaper, the '' West Indian Gazette'', in 1958, and played a central role in founding the Notting Hill Carnival, the second-largest annual carnival in the world.

Early life

Claudia Vera Cumberbatch was born in Trinidad, then a colony of the British Empire, on 21 February 1915. When she was eight years old, her family emigrated to New York City following the post-war cocoa price crash in Trinidad. Her mother died five years later, and her father eventually found work to support the family. Jones won the Theodore Roosevelt Award for Good Citizenship at her junior high school. In 1932, due to poor living conditions in Harlem, she was struck with tuberculosis at the age of 17. The disease caused irreparable damage to her lungs leading to lengthy stays in hospitals throughout her life. She graduated from high school, but her family could not afford the expenses to attend her graduation ceremony. Jones joined the Young Communist League (YCL) in 1936 after hearing the Communist Party's defense of the Scottsboro Boys. She went on to work on the YCL's newspaper, later becoming state education director and chairperson for the YCL.

United States career

Despite being academically bright, being classed as an immigrant woman severely limited Jones' career choices. Instead of going to college she began working in a laundry, and subsequently found other retail work in Harlem. During this time she joined a drama group, and began to write a column called "Claudia Comments" for a Harlem journal.

In 1936, trying to find organisations supporting the Scottsboro Boys, she joined the Young Communist League USA. The American communist movement's opposition to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, was another factor which prompted Jones to join the communists. In 1937 she joined the editorial staff of the ''Daily Worker'', rising by 1938 to become editor of the ''Weekly Review''. After the Young Communist League became American Youth for Democracy during World War II, Jones became editor of its monthly journal, ''Spotlight''. After the war, Jones became executive secretary of the Women's National Commission, secretary for the Women's Commission of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and in 1952 took the same position at the National Peace Council. In 1953, she took over the editorship of ''Negro Affairs''.

Black feminist leader in the Communist Party

As a member of the Communist Party USA and a black nationalist and feminist, Jones' main focus was on creating "an anti-imperialist coalition, managed by working-class leadership, fueled by the involvement of women."

Jones focused on growing the party's support for black and white women. Not only did she work towards getting Black women equal respect within the party, Jones also worked for getting Black women specifically respect in being a mother, worker, and woman. She campaigned for job training programs, equal pay for equal work, government controls on food prices, and funding for wartime childcare programs. Jones supported a subcommittee to address the "women's question". She insisted on the development in the party of theoretical training of women comrades, the organisation of women into mass organisations, daytime classes for women, and "babysitter" funds to allow for women's activism.

"An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!"

Jones' best known piece of writing, "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!", appeared in 1949 in the magazine ''Political Affairs''. It exhibits her development of what later came to be termed "intersectional" analysis within a Marxist framework. In it, she wrote:

Deportation

An elected member of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA, Jones also organised and spoke at events. As a result of her membership of CPUSA and various associated activities, in 1948 she was arrested and sentenced to the first of four spells in prison. Incarcerated on Ellis Island, she was threatened with deportation to Trinidad.

Following a hearing by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, she was found in violation of the McCarran Act for being an alien (non-US citizen) who had joined the Communist Party. Several witnesses testified to her role in party activities, and she had identified herself as a party member since 1936 when completing her Alien Registration on 24 December 1940, in conformity with the Alien Registration Act. She was ordered to be deported on 21 December 1950.

In 1951, aged 36 and in prison, she suffered her first heart attack. That same year, she was tried and convicted with 11 others, including her friend Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, of "un-American activities" under the Smith Act, specifically activities against the United States government. The charges against Jones related to an article she had written for the magazine ''Political Affairs'' under the title "Women in the Struggle for Peace and Security". The Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal. In 1955, Jones began her sentence of a year and a day at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia. She was released on 23 October 1955.

She was refused entry to Trinidad and Tobago, in part because the colonial governor Major General Sir Hubert Elvin Rance was of the opinion that "she may prove troublesome". She was eventually offered residency in the United Kingdom on humanitarian grounds, and federal authorities agreed to allow it when she agreed to cease contesting her deportation. On 7 December 1955, at Harlem's Hotel Theresa, 350 people met to see her off.

United Kingdom activism

Jones arrived in London two weeks later, at a time when the British African-Caribbean community was expanding. Upon her arrival, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) sent several Caribbean communists to greet her. These communist activists included Billy Strachan, Winston Pinder, and Jones's cousin Trevor Carter. However, on engaging the political community in the UK, she was disappointed to find that many British communists were hostile to a black woman. She immediately joined the CPGB upon her arrival in Britain and remained a member until her death.

Activism

Jones found a community that needed active organisation. She became involved in the British African-Caribbean community to organise both access to basic facilities, as well as the early movement for equal rights.

Supported by her cousin Trevor Carter, and her friends Nadia Cattouse, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Beryl McBurnie, Pearl Prescod and her lifelong mentor Paul Robeson, Jones campaigned against racism in housing, education and employment. She addressed peace rallies and the Trade Union Congress, and visited Japan, Russia, and China, where she met with Mao Zedong.

In the early 1960s, her health failing, Jones helped organise campaigns against the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill (passed in April 1962), which would make it harder for non-whites to migrate to Britain. She also campaigned for the release of Nelson Mandela, and spoke out against racism in the workplace.

''West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News'', 1958

From her experiences in the United States, Jones believed that "people without a voice were as lambs to the slaughter." In March 1958 above a barber's shop in Brixton, she founded and thereafter edited the '' West Indian Gazette'', its full title subsequently displayed on its masthead as ''West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News'' (''WIG''). The paper became a key contributor to the rise of consciousness within the Black British community.

Jones wrote in her last published essay, "The Caribbean Community in Britain", in ''Freedomways'' (Summer 1964):Jones, Claudia, "The Caribbean Community in Britain", ''Freedomways'' V. 4 (Summer 1964), 341–57. Quoted in McClendon III, John H.
"Jones, Claudia (1915–1964)"
Blackpast.org.

Always strapped for cash, ''WIG'' folded eight months and four editions after Jones's death in December 1964.

Notting Hill riots and "Caribbean Carnival", 1959

In August 1958, four months after the launch of ''WIG'', the Notting Hill race riots occurred, as well as similar disturbances in Robin Hood Chase, Nottingham. In view of the racially driven analysis of these events by the existing daily newspapers, Jones began receiving visits from members of the black British community and also from various national leaders responding to the concern of their citizens, including Cheddi Jagan of British Guiana, Norman Manley of Jamaica, Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Phyllis Shand Allfrey and Carl La Corbinière of the West Indies Federation.

As a result, Claudia identified the need to "wash the taste of Notting Hill and Nottingham out of our mouths". It was suggested that the British black community should have a carnival; it was December 1958, so the next question was: "In the winter?" Jones used her connections to gain use of St Pancras Town Hall in January 1959 for the first Mardi-Gras-based carnival, directed by Edric Connor (who in 1951 had arranged for the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra to appear at the Festival of Britain) and with the Boscoe Holder Dance Troupe, jazz guitarist Fitzroy Coleman and singer Cleo Laine
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