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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Claudia Jones' life remembered

by

20150221

To­day is the cen­te­nary of the birth of writer, ac­tivist and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­is­er Clau­dia Jones. Un­con­quered will be host­ing a cel­e­bra­tion to­day.

The cel­e­bra­tion kicks off at 6.30 pm at the Cloth Pro­pa­gan­da Space, 34 Erthig Road, Bel­mont.

The event will fea­ture the screen­ing of the doc­u­men­tary Look­ing for Clau­dia Jones.

It will be fol­lowed by a pan­el dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing Ca­r­ole Boyce-Davies a Pro­fes­sor of Africana Stud­ies at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. She is the au­thor of two books on Clau­dia Jones: Left of Karl Marx: The Po­lit­i­cal Life of Clau­dia Jones (2008 ) and Clau­dia Jones- Be­yond Con­tain­ment (2011).

To­day's event is one of many be­ing planned by dif­fer­ent or­gan­i­sa­tions in the Unit­ed States and Eng­land where Jones al­so lived and worked.

Jones was born in Trinidad on Feb­ru­ary 15, 1915. Her fam­i­ly moved to New York when she was eight years old. At age 20 in 1935 she got in­volved in or­gan­is­ing for the Scotts­boro Boys, which led to her be­com­ing a mem­ber of The Com­mu­nist Par­ty and Young Com­mu­nist League.

She al­so be­gan writ­ing a col­umn and was ed­i­tor of a youth pa­per.

As she grew in the ranks of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty, she held var­i­ous po­si­tions, from sec­re­tary of the Young Com­mu­nist League, to NY State Chair of Na­tion­al Coun­cil Mem­ber, to sec­re­tary of the Women's Com­mis­sion, Com­mu­nist Par­ty USA.

From 1955 to 1964 Jones worked with Lon­don's African-Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty do­ing po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al or­gan­is­ing. She found­ed and edit­ed The West In­di­an Gazette and the Afro-Asian Caribbean News, and in 1959 helped or­gan­ise a se­ries of cul­tur­al events that grew to be­come the Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val.

In 1958 she found­ed the West In­di­an Gazette. In 1959, in re­sponse to racial­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ri­ots in Not­ting Hill and the mur­der of An­tiguan im­mi­grant Kel­so Cochrane, she or­gan­ised the first Caribbean Car­ni­val in Eng­land.

Jones died of heart fail­ure in 1964. To­day's event is free of charge and open to the pub­lic.


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