Journalist, publisher and activist, Jones argued that the emancipation of Black women required attending to how they were synergistically “triply oppressed”, economically, racially and sexually, so that any emancipatory struggle could not be directed only to one facet but must simultaneously attend to all three oppressions and their interplay to succeed a foundational concept to what has become known as intersectionality. Jones' was also uniquely militant in her advocacy for de-colonialisation and anti-imperialism, supporting the military development of China against the “peaceful coexistence” doctrine of the USSR, asserting that full emancipation of oppressed nations would only come with their full technological – implicitly military – development. In this session we will read from Jones' political writing and her poetry accompanied by observations from her biographer Carole Boyce Davies exploring the historical context in which Jones' became a prominent communist activist and close colleague to many of the great luminaries of her time such as WEB Du Bois, Paul & Eslanda Robeson, CLR James, Louise Thompson Patterson, Elisabeth Gurley Flynn and many others universally respected for her militant dedication to Black emancipation, internationalism and anti-imperialism.
readings
The West Indian Gazette: Claudia Jones and the black press in Britain By Donald Hinds
Carole Boyce Davies and Claudia Jones: radical Black female subjectivity, mutual comradeship, and alternative epistemology
Charisse Burden-Stelly
Read in session
Claudia Jones: We Seek Full Equality for Women
Claudia Jones: Women for Peace and Security
Ch. 5 from Schwarz-Cohen's More Work for Mother on “failed” alternative modernities