This book tells the story of Trinidad-born Claudia Jones, a key figure in the movement for racial justice in Britain. Exiled in 1955 from the US for her affiliation to the Communist Party, she arrived in London penniless and became active in civil rights campaigns among the capital's West Indian communities. She set up the newspaper
West Indian Gazette and in 1958, following racist violence in Notting Hill, launched an annual indoor carnival to showcase Caribbean culture.
Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile was the first book to chart the work of this visionary and pioneer, focusing on her time in Britain. Part of the Radical Black Women series, this new edition features a preface by Black feminist researcher Lola Olufemi and an appendix compiled by Marika Sherwood.
Preface
Notes on contributors
The symposium speakers
Introduction
1 Claudia in the USA
2 Claudia settles in London
3 Claudia and the British Community Party
4 The political activist
5 The West Indian Gazette
6 Carnival
7 Her death, burial and legacy
Symposium
Session 1: My friend Claudia
Session 2: The political activist
Session 3: The West Indian Gazette
Session 4: Carnival
Appendix
Index
Sherwood’s work is more than biographical. She sketches a time in history that few cogently understand. Black British history too often starts with the Empire Windrush (1948) and then leapfrogs to the 1960s, without recording the intervening years. Sherwood reveals these ‘lost’ years and the struggles of the activists who peopled this topography. Jones was foremost among them, an intersectional activist before such a phrase was coined. – Dr Onyeka Nubia, Edge Hill University, Huddersfield University
