Claudia Jones: The Communist Black Woman Feared by the FBI

Clara West Claudia Jones speaks at a Communist Party event in the 1940s. Seated behind her is Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Claudia Jones (1915–1964), an Afro-Caribbean woman born in Port of Spain, British West Indies (Trinidad), was a Communist activist in the U.S., holding several responsible positions within the Communist Party and for its publications until…

“The Crime of Being Born Black on American Soil”: Claudia Jones’s Statement Before Being Sentenced, February 2, 1953

The Black Agenda Review Claudia Jones and fellow targeted comrades Claudia Jones’s arrests and eventual deportation were part of the expansion of the US government’s Cold War attacks on immigrants—Black immigrants included—who were affiliated with the Communist Party. “The Negro witness [William Garfield] Cummings laughed at the thought of his $10,000 Judas gold jingling in his…

Claudia Jones and the Emancipatory Promise of Socialism

Denise Lynn At her sentencing hearing in February 1953, Claudia Jones stood before judge Edward Dimock with 12 of her fellow American Communist Party members (CPUSA) and declared her belief that her guilty sentence was based solely on her leadership in the CPUSA, something for which she declared, she proudly pled guilty. Jones and her…

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones

Barbara Foley Review of Claudia Jones: Revolutionary Communist by Sarah Harper and Karyn Pomerantz, September 9, 2018 Introduction This article is part of a series that briefly reviews the immense contributions of black revolutionaries fighting racism and capitalism, primarily in the United States during the early to the mid-20th Century. Some people view Marxism and…

Claudia Jones: Revolutionary Feminist and Fighter

Adiah Hicks Claudia Jones was a revolutionary communist and anti-colonial activist. Born Claudia Vera Cumberbatch on Feb. 21, 1915, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Jones spent her life fighting for the liberation of the workers of the world. She was outspoken on issues of race and gender and utilized her position in the Communist Party USA to…