Badass Black Communists: Claudia Jones

Claudia spoke about the early influences that pointed her in the direction of communism:

“On this, my 37th birthday, I think of my mother. My mother, a machine worker in a garment factory, died when she was just the same age I am today – 37 years old. I think I began then to develop an understanding of the suffering of my people and my class and to look for a way to end them.”

Right from the start, Claudia realised that what she and her family was suffering in New York was also being suffered by working-class people of every race and nationality, eventhough black people and women were often suffering more.

Claudia Jones was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in 1915, when Trinidad was still a British colony. When she was eight, she moved with her parents and three sisters to Harlem, New York. Living in impoverished conditions, Claudia caught tuberculosis and had to drop out of school in 1932. For the rest of her life she suffered from damaged lungs and heart disease.

Jones stayed in New York from 1923 to 1955. In 1936, she became an active member of the American Communist Party. At the time, Black issues were still neglected in mainstream politics. The Communist Party, with its ethos of social equality, offered a voice for those fighting for Black civil rights.

In a speech made to a court in February 1953, Claudia explained:

“It was out of my Jim Crowexperiences as a young Negro woman, experiences likewise born of working-class poverty that led me to join the Young Communist League and to choose the philosophy of my life, the science of Marxism Leninism – that philosophy that not only rejects racist ideas, but is the antithesis of them.”

Claudia Jones was a talented journalist and by the late 1940s she had become the editor of ‘Negro Affairs’ for the party’s paper, The Daily Worker. An elected member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, she also organised and spoke at events. In 1948, she was arrested for her political activities and sentenced to the first of four spells in prison. Finally, following a year in the Alderson Federal Reformatory for Women, Jones was deported. She was refused entry to Trinidad and, in 1955, was granted asylum in England.

In London, Claudia Jones became a leader in the emerging Black equal rights movement. Post-war migration from the Caribbean had caused tensions in the City. Many West Indians suffered from prejudice in housing and employment. At the time, there was no legislation making it illegal to discriminate on the ground of colour.

In 1958, Claudia Jones founded the West Indian Gazette, the first newspaper printed in London for the Black community. It provided a forum for discussion of civil rights as well as reporting news that was overlooked by the mainstream media. Claudia worked as editor on the paper until her death, encouraging the most talented Black writers of the time to contribute to it.

One of Jones’ best-known legacies is the annual Notting Hill Carnival. She helped launch the event as a response to the 1958 riots, when tensions had turned violent as racist mobs attacked local Black residents. Using the West Indian tradition of carnival, the event was intended to create closer relations between all local communities. The first carnival was held in January 1959 in a local hall.

In the early 1960s, despite failing health, Jones helped organise campaigns against the 1962 Immigration Act. This had made 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.

Claudia Jones died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1964, aged just 48. She was buried in Highgate cemetery next to the grave of Karl Marx.

Claudia was an amazing communist with a deep understanding of Marxism Leninism: a born organiser and an indomitable spirit, and we in Britain are extremely lucky to have had her among us for the last nine years of her life. Her spirit and commitment are an example to us all, when we remember that she would get up out of her hospital bed to attend political meetings and then return to it.

Let us remember Claudia, pay homage to her, and strive to follow the example that she set in literally giving her life to the movement, thereby living forever in the hearts and minds of progressive people the world over.

(via choongcommunist-deactivated2012)