|
CLAUDIA JONES: BEYOND CONTAINMENT
This book brings together for the first time the essays, poetry, and autobiographical and other writings of cultural activist Claudia Jones (1915-1964). What is revealed is the voice of a woman who was both politically savvy and brilliant, a feminist with radical ideas that will resonate with today’s readers interested in community empowerment and black nationalism.
REVIEWS
“In this stunning collection . . . Davies not only underscores why Jones stands among the world’s most important radical theorists and organizers of the 20th century, but she reveals the Trinidadian-born, transnational intellectual as artist and visionary.”
Robin D.G. Kelley, University of Southern California “Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment lifts veils of ignorance and erasure that obscure a brilliant, 20th century human rights advocate.” Joy James, Williams College “Davies provides a glimpse of the totality of Jones as a radical black activist, intellectual, feminist, poet, organizer, and journalist…. She reveals how Jones’s thoughts and practices are linked to a tradition of radical female and male activists such as Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman.” Ama Biney, University of London Claudia Jones is one of my personal heroines. I spent my formative political years in Claudia Jones’ stamping ground of Notting Hill – it was the classic centre of post-war black activism in Britain. Most West Indian immigrants in the 1950s came by boat to Southampton and the train from there to Paddington. Hence the large black community in that part of West London. So I know people who have worked with Claudia Jones and spoke of her with awe. She founded two of Black Britain’s most important institutions; the first black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette and she was also one of the founding organizers of the Notting Hill Carnival. The ’hidden history’ of women’s contribution to progressive politics has been concealed for too long. This important book is part of the process of putting that right. Claudia Jones was an iconic figure who inspired a generation of black activists and deserves to be much more widely known. This book is a fitting memorial. Diane Abbott, MP, Westminster, London Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment transcends the silencing and erasure historically accorded women of achievement: it makes accessible and brings to wider attention the words of an often overlooked twentieth-century political and cultural activist, who tirelessly campaigned, wrote, spoke put, organized, edited and published autobiographical writings, poetry, essays, on subjects close to her political heart – human rights, peace, struggles related to gender, race and class – this is a collection that unites the many facets of a woman whose identities as a radical thinker and as a black woman are not in conflict. Carole Boyce-Davies, author of the acclaimed Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008), continues the task of ensuring that Claudia Jones takes her rightful place in the exalted list of twentieth-century Caribbean intellectuals in the Diaspora, including her compatriots George Padmore and C.L.R. James, who engaged with the world to make it a more enlightened place and whose legacy still deserves to resonate. Margaret Busby, OBE, Writer, Broadcaster and Journalist |