TRINBAGONIAN HEROINES (1) : CLAUDIA JONES

Trinbagonian is what citizens of Trinidad and Tobago are called.

Claudia Jones was revolutionary of her time. She migrated with her family to the United States when she was eight years old. As she grew older, she spoke out against racism and injustice.

The defense of the ‘scottsboro’ boys by the communist party in the United States of America, led her to join them. After High school, she became a staff of the communist paper, Young Communist League. She rose to position of chairperson of the newspaper till her death in 1964.

Claudia was born Claudia Cumberbatch but later adopted the surname, Jones. Claudia was so vocal and persistent against the social injustice in the United States that she was deported to the United Kingdom in 1955 when the colonial governor refused her entry to her own country of Trinidad and Tobago.

Communists in Britain met her on arrival in the UK. She realized the communists there were biased against women in leadership. She was undeterred. She began the movement for equal rights for women and the African community in Great Britain.

She visited Japan, Russia and China and even met with the legendary Mao Zedong of China.

She founded the West Indian Gazette in the UK. She initiated the now famous Notting Hill Carnival which took place in St. Panchras Town hall in January 1959. It gradually became a street event in the sixties.

Claudia Jones died on Christmas Eve at the tender age of forty-nine, of tuberculosis and a heart attack. She was buried beside her hero Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery in London.

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