Claudia Jones

Posted by Barbara on August 18, 2025 in Black lives matter, Blog, Dame designate, feminism, History, women writers | 2 comments

Claudia Jones was an extraordinary woman; a trailblazer, campaigner, perhaps the greatest British African activist ever.  However, one thing must be stated now: contrary to what is often reported, she never organised a carnival in Notting Hill, neither did she start the Notting Hill Carnival.

Claudia Vera Cumberbatch was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 21 February 1915.  She was reunited with her parents two years after they had emigrated to the US, arriving in New York on 9 February 1924. She travelled with her sisters and an aunt.

As a young child, Cumberbatch witnessed the exploitative work practices that Black women had to endure. Her mother, Sybil, was a garment worker, probably overworked and underpaid. She died only a few years after arriving in Harlem. Her father, Charles, lost his job, leaving the family destitute. Claudia developed TB probably due to poor living conditions, and she had to spend a year in a sanatorium. Nonetheless, she graduated from high school in 1935.

Cumberbatch became involved with social activism and began to publicise the struggles of the working class. She also helped organize rallies and demonstrations defending the accused in the Scottsboro case, a major civil rights controversy surrounding the prosecution of nine young Black men charged with the rape of two white women. She joined the Communist party USA and the Young Communist League. She wrote articles for the league’s journal, the Daily Worker, and quickly gained leadership positions within several organizations, including the National Peace Council and the Women’s Commission. In 1940 she married Abraham Scholnick, divorcing seven years later, and she began using the surname Jones to remain anonymous while expressing her political beliefs freely.

Jones’s activism and involvement with communism and socialism brought her to the attention of the US government. She was arrested on several occasions when McCarthyism was at its height and served time in prison in 1955 for ‘un-American activities’. Later that year she was deported to the UK, moving to London at a time when thousands of individuals from the Caribbean were arriving.  In 1958 she founded West Indian Gazette, one of the first major Black newspapers in the UK.  It reported on political events in the UK, the Caribbean, and Africa. and also became Jones’s vehicle for expressing her views on imperialism, racism, and sexism.

In 1958, race riots took place in Notting Hill in London: for a week, hundreds of mostly young white individuals attacked Caribbean people and their properties. To counteract the negative situation, Jones helped organize a carnival celebration in 1959 to showcase West Indian culture.  Together with the West Indian Gazette she organised five other annual indoor Caribbean Carnival cabarets at various London venues.

Jones was one of the leaders of the London March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom ‘solidarity march’, which started its journey to the American embassy from Ladbroke Grove. This march took place on 31 August 31 1963, three days after the momentous march in Washington.

Her health had always been a problem and Jones died of a heart attack in London on Christmas Eve 1964, aged 49.  She is buried in Highgate Cemetery.  The National Union of Journalists’  Black Members’ Council holds a prestigious annual Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture every October, during Black History Month, to honour Jones and celebrate her contribution to Black-British journalism.

Postscript: once again I am grateful to one of the younger members of the family for drawing my attention to this extraordinary dame. Thanks Max!