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Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Welcome, strictly Facts, fam. Thank you for tuning in to another episode. Welcome, strictly Facts, fam. Thank you for tuning in to another episode. We hope you had a great Caribbean American Heritage Month last June and you know Strictly Facts is here to keep you celebrating Caribbean history all year round.

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Then the mother of Caribbean Carnival in Britain, claudia Jones. Claudia Jones is one of the most significant yet under-discussed Caribbean women activists of the 20th century. She spent most of her life living in the diaspora, advocating for the rights of the working class, for women and for Caribbean migrants in England, which she is most recognized for Hailing from Trinidad and Tobago. Claudia Vera Cumberbatch was born on February 21st 1915 in Belmont, port of Spain, to Charles and Sybil Cumberbatch. She and her family, including her three sisters, later immigrated to New York in February 1924. Jones had a very active adolescence in New York as a member of the junior NAACP, in addition to studying drama at the National Urban League, a New York-based community organization focused on social justice for Black people in the US. Jones' family was working class and upon graduating from high school in 1935, she worked in laundry, in factory and in retail industries, all while continuing her activism, including through her very own column, claudia Comments, in a Harlem newspaper. This time was also a major catalyst for Jones' activism, beliefs and party affiliations Through her support for the freedom of the Scottsboro Boys a series of cases beginning in 1931, in which nine Black teenagers were falsely accused and convicted of rape in Alabama. Jones joined the Communist Party and went on to later become a leader in the Young Communist League.

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Jones spent roughly the next two decades as a writer and editor of various newspapers, like the Daily Worker and Spotlight, and she advocated for the youth, for civil rights and the rights of immigrants and women, to name a few. As a Marxist, jones also supported workers' rights, especially the rights of working-class Black women, which she wrote at length about, as I quote, as workers, as Negroes and as women, highlighting the triple burden or triple oppression, or what we would call today intersectionality, of Black women's experiences. She wrote about this at length in her most famous 1949 article, an End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman, and used her leadership to challenge the Communist Party's views on race and gender. In it she wrote, and I quote the bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman, and for good reason. The capitalists know far better than many progressives seem to know that once Negro women begin to take action, the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus the anti-imperialist coalition, is greatly enhanced. End quote. Anti-imperialist coalition is greatly enhanced end quote.

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In addition, jones toured throughout the US speaking at rallies, recruiting for the Communist Party and reshaping women's organizations for various states. She also campaigned for causes like equal pay, job training, child care programs and even daytime classes for women. All of this work made Claudia Jones a target of US surveillance. She was first arrested and threatened with deportation in 1948 and went on to spend the next seven years in and out of the courtroom for committing and I quote un-American activities until her eventual deportation in December 1955. Trinidad's colonial governor, sir Hubert Rance, denied her re-entry to Trinidad because he thought Jones would and I quote again may cause troublesome activities in the island. So she was granted stay in the UK, where she continued her activism as part of organizations like the Communist Party for Great Britain and the West Indian Forum and Committee on Racism and International Affairs.

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She worked alongside both new and familiar names to Strictly Facts like Amy Ashwood Garvey and Beryl McBurney from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, spearheading movements for Britain's growing Black population and fighting racial discrimination amidst the growing racial tensions brought on by migrations like Windrush, which we discussed in episode three. She co-founded the West Indian Workers and Students Association in 1957 and advocated for Afro-Asian solidarity through her founding of the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News, britain's first major Black newspaper, which she founded in 1958. In January 1959, jones launched Britain's first Caribbean carnival, now known as the Notting Hill Carnival, in response to a series of white-led riots on the Afro-Caribbean community in the summer of 1958. Featuring Trinidadian creatives and musicians like Edric Conner and Bosco Holder, the celebrations went by the slogan a people's art is the genesis of their freedom and raised money to help those affected by the Notting Hill riots. Her efforts continued beyond the UK, like in 1963 when she represented Trinidad at the World Congress of Women in the Soviet Union, and she also gave speeches in places like Japan and China and organized against apartheid in South Africa in 1964. Amidst all of her accomplishments, jones had a long history of health complications which were further exacerbated by her time in jail in the US. She sadly passed away from a heart attack on December 24, 1964, at just 49 years old. Claudia Jones' work as a communist writer, journalist and political organizer continues to live on in organizations, lectures and even a plaque in Notting Hill celebrating the mother of Caribbean Carnival for all her contributions to the Caribbean community. She's buried to the left of her political idol, karl Marx, in London Oyeago.

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Stay tuned for Strictly Facts Sounds, where we connect our history to pop culture. This Strictly Facts Sounds combines writing and film in celebration of Claudia Jones. To learn more about Jones' life, check out Dr Carol Boyce-Davies' biography Left of Karl Marx, the Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones and the edited collection of Jones' writing entitled Claudia Jones Beyond Containment. There is also an amazing five-part series on Notting Hill Carnival's history available from the Open University, and the 2010 documentary Looking for Claudia Jones, directed by Nia Reynolds, which details her life by some of those closest to her.

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Claudia Jones' impact on Caribbean history deserves greater recognition, especially in our diaspora. So we hope you learned a bit about her work and continue to check out more from our Strictly Facts syllabus. Claudia Jones is big people tings indeed, and we hope you enjoyed this episode. Let us know who else you'd like to learn about by sending us an email or a DM on social media. Look for more Strictly Facts fam or a DM on social media. Look for more Strictly Facts fam. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit strictlyfactspodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts PD on Twitter.