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Claudia Jones:
A Life in Exile
Marika Sherwood, Claudia Jones, A Life in Exile, (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1999), ISBN 0 85315 882 7, 222pp., Ł13.99 pbk.
At a time when racism in all its forms is headline news in Britain, a book, which considers the life and work of a great but subsequently neglected black activist, must be welcomed. Marika Sherwood renders a service by producing this biography of the remarkable Claudia Jones, especially in retrieving previously unpublished information about the nine years she spent in exile in Britain.
Claudia was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, on 21st February 1915 Her parents moved to Harlem in 1922, Claudia and her three sisters following two years later. After the death of her mother, her father struggled alone to support the family through the Depression. One consequence of their poor living conditions was Claudia's tuberculosis, which she contracted in 1932. After leaving High school, she worked in a number of menial jobs but in February 1936, inspired by the CPUSA's campaign in defence of the Scottsboro boys, she joined the Young Communist League where she developed her skills as a journalist in addition to proving her worth as a campaigner. By the mid-1940s, she was editor for Negro Affairs on the CPUSA's Daily Worker and executive secretary of the National Negro Commission. A brilliant orator and indefatigable worker, she served on the National Committee of the CPUSA, was appointed executive secretary of the National Women's Commission and editor of the Negro Affairs Quarterly. Eventually, however, the combined strain of her workload and state harassment — she was arrested on several occasions during the McCarthy witch hunts — led to a health breakdown and she was diagnosed as suffering from heart disease. In January 1955 she began a twelve-month gaol sentence during which her health deteriorated further, exacerbated by lack of adequate medical care in prison. Despite national and international support for her release and a campaign to allow her to remain in the US, she was deported to Britain in December 1955.
The Daily Worker welcomed Claudia on her arrival in Britain and, following her release from a two-month period of hospitalisation, the CPGB held a reception for her. The Party also tried and failed to persuade the Home Office to grant her a passport — she was unable to travel abroad freely until 1962. An immediate problem was one of housing; she initially stayed with fellow US communist exiles until May 1956 when she was offered the lease on a flat belonging to the Rev Hewlett Johnson, the 'Red' Dean of Canterbury. To begin with, employment was provided by the CPGB at the New China News Agency, but this was not a successful placing — there were tensions between the staff and Claudia complained that she was regarded as a 'burden' by some. Claudia clearly felt undervalued by the Party and her relationship with its hierarchy soon became strained. She believed that the Party could give a clearer lead on the race issue and pushed for it to take more direct action rather than restrict itself to issuing policy declarations. Nevertheless, she continued to participate in communist affairs being a member of the CPGB's International Affairs Committee and the West Indies Committee (later the West Indies Advisory Committee), although her involvement with these fell away by the 1960s. She agreed to a request by the Party to participate in a 'special commission to combat racism' in January 1964 and worked on the draft of the party's Policy statement on the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act, which it vigorously opposed.
From the late 1950s, Claudia began to focus more exclusively on black issues, helping to organise and co-ordinate work among 'colonial' peoples in Britain and campaigning against racism and discrimination. In March 1958, the West Indian Workers and Students Association, of which Claudia was a leading member, launched the West Indian Gazette which aimed to provide a source of information and inspiration for the black community. Paul Robeson was one of its patrons and performed at fund-raising events. The newspaper suffered from a series of problems and setbacks — soon after publication began it was subject to an attack on its offices by the Klu Klux Klan as well as strife within its founding committee and it continuously faced financial troubles and consequently, staffing problems. Despite this, Claudia managed to keep the paper going — the Gazette finally folded in summer 1965, just months after her death. The existence of a quality paper addressing black issues must have provided reassurance for a fearful minority in the period following the Nottingham and Notting Hill riots in summer 1958 and its circulation reflected this, reaching a peak of 30,000.
Two of the more enduring organisations which were established in the wake of the riots were the Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the Inter-Racial Friendship Co-ordinating Council and Claudia worked within these, helping to raise issues such as the need for legislation to prevent incitement to racial hatred and allegations of police hostility towards the coloured community. She later formed the Afro-Asian-Caribbean Conference to fight against the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act, collaborated with Fenner Brockway's Movement for Colonial Freedom from the late 1950s and worked with the anti-apartheid movement and the Indian Workers Association. Claudia was also a moving spirit in the establishment of the Caribbean Carnival in Britain. After the Gazette sponsored a Caribbean Carnival Committee as a positive reaction to the divisive events surrounding the riots, Claudia used her skills to bring together African, Caribbean and other artists and performers in a celebration of black culture. The first Carnival took place on 30th January 1959 with part of the proceeds from the sale of the souvenir brochure pledged to pay the fines of those involved in the Notting Hill troubles.
Claudia was impressed by what she saw in August 1962 when, her passport having finally been returned, she visited the USSR and the following year she returned to attend the World Congress of Women. Neither of these visits were arranged by the British CP, but were probably facilitated through her contacts with the wider communist movement. In summer 1964 she attended the Tenth World Conference Against the Hydrogen and Atomic Bombs in Tokyo. From Japan she flew with other delegates to China, where they were greeted by Chairman Mao. During the same year, Martin Luther King called in to see her on his way to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. But as the geographical boundaries of her world were relaxing, the illness which had dogged her during her years in exile was tightening its grip. In December of that year, Claudia was again admitted to hospital and following her release, died of a massive heart attack in her bed on Christmas Day. She was aged just 48. Among the many friends and colleagues who attended her funeral were representatives from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Those who paid tributes to Claudia included speakers from the ANC and the CPGB, the Algerian Ambassador, Fenner Brockway and Paul Robeson, who subsequently became chair of the Claudia Jones Memorial Committee. The February edition of the Gazette carried salutes from, among others, CPUSA leaders, the High Commissioner for Ghana and the Head of the International Department of the Soviet Women's Committee. Claudia's remains are buried next to Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery.
Although there is much to enjoy in this book, I believe that it would have benefited from a more circumspect analysis as some of the author's conclusions about the British Communist Party and its treatment of Claudia are rather sweeping. The Party may well have been guilty of an inadequate response to the issue of racism in Britain, some members may have shared racist attitudes prevalent in the general population, but this does not prove that the organisation was racist. It is claimed that the CP did not acknowledge the issue of racism and did nothing to protest about racism in the 1950s. The Party's 'Charter of Rights for Coloured Workers in Britain', issued in February 1955, seems to be dismissed because it was an initiative of the International Committee and it is claimed that, when the issue of racism in Britain was addressed in Party literature from the mid-1950s it was because of the efforts of new, more vociferous coloured members. Yet it was only during these years that racial tensions, fuelled by those who raised fears over colored immigration for political ends, became an issue in Britain. The CP implacably opposed the fascist organisations, gave its full support to Fenner Brockway's efforts to introduce an anti-discrimination bill, worked with the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the National Council of Civil Liberties to oppose racist immigration controls and raised the issue of racial discrimination with trade unions.
It is claimed that Claudia was ignored and rejected by the Party and suggested that this behaviour was based on racist attitudes. But Claudia's estrangement from the British CP was more likely to have resulted from a number of reasons. She arrived in Britain in 1956, when the Party was beginning to tear itself apart over the Khruschev revelations — the CPUSA itself was decimated by the events of that year. Arriving as an unwilling exile in a foreign country, subject to surveillance by the security forces and suffering from serious health problems, she had found it 'impossible to be both uprooted and ill' (p.37). There were bound to be problems in integrating such a larger than life, high-status figure into the existing Party structure, whatever their racial origins. In addition, her close companion during these years, Manchanda, was generally remembered as being difficult, even a trickster — he 'kept people away' (q p.51). This was demonstrated by his refusal to permit a committee formed in 1982 by the Afro-Caribbean Organisation to erect a headstone on Claudia's grave. Finally, the author cites the fact that the Party press did not print an obituary for Claudia as evidence of the CP hierarchy's neglect of her, but an obituary did appear in the Daily Worker (1 January 1965) and this was followed by an account of the funeral oration delivered by John Williamson on behalf of the EC of the CPGB the following week (Daily Worker, 11 January 1965).
