Marika Sherwood

This is a short account and discussion of the life and legacy of the black Communist political activist Claudia Jones (1915-1964). Marika Sherwood's biography is presented together with a number of papers by different authors examining aspects of Claudia Jones' life and work. An earlier version of this book was published in 1998, but I read a 2021 edition with a new introduction by young Black feminist writer Lola Olufemi.

Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad but her family moved to New York City when she was 8, and she became very active in the Communist Party and in campaigns against racism and for justice for black people there. Her work included speaking, writing articles and editing newspapers, alongside paid employment in laundry and retail. During the anti-Communist witchhunt of the 1950s though, she was imprisoned for her activities in 1951 and deported from the US in 1955, in the end not back to Trinidad to London. She had a difficult relationship with leading figures in the British Communist Party. She attended various meetings and events, struggled through ill health and poverty, to continue as an activist, and set up and produced various newspapers, and she made some good friends here but also encountered a lot of hostility and judgemental attitudes from some in the Communist Party hierarchy.

She and those she worked with did manage to set up a number of social events, parties with musicians, speakers, beauty pageants etc, and this became the roots of what was to become the Notting Hill Carnival, though whether this should be credited to Claudia Jones or to others has become disputed.

Claudia Jones' health was poor throughout her adult life - she had had TB at 17 and then spent most of her life living in poverty and with a spell of imprisonment. She spent a lot of time in hospital in the final years of her life, and in December 1964 at only 49, she died suddenly. of a heart attack

This is an interesting but at times challenging read, as Marika Sherwood and others clearly found that in many cases documents, articles and records on Claudia Jones' life and work simply had not been kept properly. The fairly short biography is supplemented by extensive endnotes, and there are also transcripts from a symposium on Claudia Jones where several activists from the 1950s and 1960s talk about their memories of her (not always consistent).

The book is a bit confusing in places because the original 1998 edition and new material have clearly been put together and reorganised and endnote numbers have been left in parts of the text but the endnotes aren't there, or are elsewhere in the book. There are also inconsistencies and repetitions because of the book being in this format, but positively it offers a variety of views.… (altro)