Claudia Jones Remembered: some reflections lessons 60 years on
Claudia Jones Remembered: Learning lessons 60 years on
published by Birmingham Race Impact Group January 2025
Christmas Day 2024 marked the 60th anniversary of the passing of Claudia Jones, a revolutionary whose life was a testament to resistance, resilience, and radical hope. As the visionary behind Notting Hill Carnival, Jones transformed culture into a weapon against oppression, demonstrating that joy can be a form of protest. Her legacy inspires us to rise, resist, and keep the struggle alive.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Jones was raised in Harlem, where she experienced the harsh realities of systemic racism and poverty. Like Malcolm X, another Harlem-based figure, she came of age in a world defined by segregation and oppression. Later, Jones lived her final years in London, where she built alliances with groups like the Indian Workers Association in Birmingham. Her politics were deeply shaped by her experiences of injustice, her commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideals, and her defiance of the colonial and capitalist systems that sought to divide and exploit.
From an early age, Jones rejected the racism and prejudice that permeated American society. In her school years, she resisted efforts to isolate herself from Chinese students, standing firm against the anti-Asian bigotry of the time. This commitment to Afro-Asian solidarity and internationalism became a cornerstone of her activism. Jones understood that imperialism thrived on division and exploitation, and her life’s work was dedicated to dismantling these systems through collective struggle.
Her political education was forged in the fires of 1930s and 1940s America, where she witnessed the brutalities of Jim Crow and the racist propaganda directed at West Indian immigrants. The Scottsboro Boys case—where nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of raping two white women—profoundly impacted her. She was drawn to Communist speakers who connected the case to global struggles, including Ethiopia’s fight against fascism. This experience led Jones to join the Communist Party, first in the U.S. and later in Britain, seeing it as a vehicle for international solidarity and revolutionary change.
Jones's activism brought her into the government's crosshairs during the height of the Red Scare in the United States. In 1955, she was arrested under the Smith Act for “un-American activities.” Her crime was writing “International Women’s Day and the Struggle for Peace,” an article calling for women’s rights to be linked to broader struggles for equality, democracy, and peace and not confined to domestic roles. She warned that without equality, women and their children would remain tools of imperialist wars.
All photographs were kindly donated by Claudia Manchandra and family.
Defiant in court, Jones condemned her trial as undemocratic, framing it as a racist attack on her anti-capitalist, anti-racist work. Sentenced to prison in 1955, she was held at the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia. Her warnings about imperialism and war were later echoed in the Vietnam War era, as movements like the Black Panthers and the Peace and Freedom Party adopted strategies linking anti-racism and anti-war activism—ideas she had championed years earlier.
After her release, Jones was deported to Britain, where she continued her work. In London, she first lived in Vauxhall, where she shared a home with Abhimanyu ‘Manu’ Manchanda of the Association of Indian Communists. During these years, she founded the West Indian Gazette in 1958, one of the first major Black British newspapers, and organised the first Caribbean Carnival in 1959 to celebrate African and Caribbean culture. These efforts were her response to the racial tensions inflamed by the Notting Hill and Nottingham riots, using art and culture as tools to heal and mobilise communities. Later, she lived in Stockwell and Belsize Park, maintaining her cherished friendship with ‘Manu.’
Jones believed in the power of grassroots organising and urged activists to speak in the language of the people they sought to engage. Resisting the left's tendency to elevate leaders as vanguards, Claudia Jones consistently emphasised the importance of collective struggle and grassroots education. She believed true liberation could only come through engaging directly with the people, fostering dialogue, and building movements rooted in shared knowledge and solidarity.
For Jones, the history of anti-colonialism in Asia and the Caribbean offered a blueprint for resistance and a critique of narrow and incomplete ideas of self-determination. She championed an approach to liberation that combined action, reflection, and creativity, demanding cultural reimagining and critical thinking.
Her experiences navigating the rigid structures of the Communist Party as a Black woman, battling both right-wing opposition and conservative elements within the left, taught her that true democracy requires more than lofty ideals. It demands active participation and a willingness to confront the flaws within established systems. For Jones, liberation was not a fixed destination but an ongoing process that called for constant engagement, self-awareness, and an unshakable commitment to justice. Avtar Jouhl of the Indian Workers Association recalled, “Claudia taught us how to organise, write letters, engage people, and use art and culture to build movements. Speak as the people speak, she always told us.” Her work transcended narrow identities, emphasising a collective human liberation that respected race, class, and gender but sought to rise above their limitations.
Despite her achievements, Jones’s life was marked by relentless struggle. Battling chronic illness and financial hardship, she continued to fight for justice until her death from a heart attack on December 25, 1964. She was 49 years old. Her ashes were laid to rest in Highgate Cemetery beside Karl Marx, a fitting tribute to her lifelong dedication to revolutionary change.
Sixty years on, Claudia Jones’s life and work remain as relevant as ever. As contemporary movements confront the intersections of race, class, and gender, her writings and activism offer a powerful guide. In a time when far-right forces exploit divisions for political gain, Jones’s vision challenges us to build solidarity and resist oppression in all its forms. Her legacy endures, reminding us that the struggle for justice is never over—and that resistance, in all its forms, is an act of hope.