37 Facts About Claudia Jones

Claudia Vera Jones was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist.

Claudia Jones then founded Britain's first major Black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette, in 1958, and organised a series of indoor Caribbean carnivals from 1959 which have been cited as an influence on what became the Notting Hill Carnival, the second-largest annual carnival in the world.

Claudia Jones Vera Cumberbatch was born in Belmont, Port of Spain in Trinidad, which was then a colony of the British Empire, on 21 February 1915.

Claudia Jones's mother died five years later, and her father eventually found work to support the family.

Claudia Jones won the Theodore Roosevelt Award for Good Citizenship at her junior high school.

Claudia Jones graduated from high school, but her family could not afford the expenses to attend her graduation ceremony.

Claudia Jones went on to work on the YCL newspaper, later becoming state education director and chairperson for the YCL.

Claudia Jones focused on growing the party's support for Black and white women.

Claudia Jones worked for getting Black women, specifically, respect in being a mother, worker, and woman.

Claudia Jones campaigned for job training programs, equal pay for equal work, government controls on food prices, and funding for wartime childcare programs.

Claudia Jones 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.

Claudia Jones continues to argue that Black women often undertake primary responsibility in caring for the economic and social life of their families, frequently becoming the main "breadwinners".

In calling for collective support for Black women's struggles for justice, Claudia Jones urges white progressives to integrate Black women into leadership roles and to recognise their unique struggles.

An elected member of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA, Claudia Jones organised and spoke at events.

Claudia Jones was ordered to be deported on 21 December 1950.

The charges against Claudia Jones related to an article she had written for the magazine Political Affairs under the title "Women in the Struggle for Peace and Security".

In 1955, Claudia Jones began her sentence of a year and a day at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia.

Claudia Jones 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.

Claudia Jones arrived in London two weeks later, at a time when the British African-Caribbean community was expanding.

Claudia Jones immediately joined the CPGB upon her arrival in Britain and remained a member until her death.

Claudia Jones became involved in the British African-Caribbean community to organise both access to basic facilities, as well as the early movement for equal rights.

Claudia Jones addressed peace rallies and the Trade Union Congress, and visited Japan, Russia, and China, where she met with Mao Zedong.

Claudia Jones campaigned for the release of Nelson Mandela, and spoke out against racism in the workplace.

Claudia Jones wrote in her last published essay, "The Caribbean Community in Britain", in Freedomways :.

In view of the racially driven analysis of these events by the existing daily newspapers, Claudia Jones began receiving visits from members of the Black British community and 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 Corbiniere of the West Indies Federation.

Claudia Jones died in London on Christmas Eve 1964, aged 49, and was found on Christmas Day at her flat.

Claudia Jones's funeral on 9 January 1965 was a large and political ceremony, with her burial plot selected to be that located to the left of the tomb of her hero, Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery, North London.

Claudia Jones was a vigorous and courageous leader of the Communist Party of the United States, and was very active in the work for the unity of white and coloured peoples and for dignity and equality, especially for the Negro people and for women.

From 1950 to 1953, Claudia Jones contributed to the Daily Worker newspaper a regular column called "Half of the World", a title she used to assert the importance of women's rights, given their proportional numbers in the world.

The Claudia Jones Organization was founded in London in 1982 by Yvette Thomas and others to support and empower women and families of African-Caribbean heritage.

In May 2008, Caribbean-American academic Carole Boyce Davies published Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Claudia Jones, detailing Jones' radical political organising, writing, and enduring legacy as Black feminist Marxist.

Claudia Jones is named on the list of 100 Great Black Britons and in the 2020 book.

Claudia Jones appeared as a prominent character in Yasmin Joseph's 2019 play J'Ouvert, which premiered at Theatre 503 before transferring to the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2021.

On 14 October 2020, Claudia Jones was honoured with a Google Doodle.

In January 2023, English Heritage announced that a blue plaque would be unveiled later that year on a house in Vauxhall that Claudia Jones shared for almost four years.

In 2018 Claudia Jones was named by the Evening Standard on a list of 14 "Inspirational Black British women throughout history".

In June 2023, Claudia Jones was listed as one of the Windrush generation who struggled for civil rights in the UK.