Claudia Jones (Cumberbatch)

port of harlem gambian education partnership

Claudia Jones (Cumberbatch)
Organizer and Renaissance Person
(1915 – 1964)
Trinidad and Tobago

With Karl Marx’s work as a base, Claudia Jones developed her own theories. In 1949, she published her best-known piece, an essay titled “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” in which she links her race and gender. As a Communist Party USA organizer, leader, editor, theoretician, and journalist, she adopted the surname Jones as self-protective disinformation. However, her communist ties led the US to deport her to the UK in 1955. Today, many consider Jones the mother of London’s Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world’s largest street festivals, which started as an attempt at unifying a Black community. Claudia Vera Cumberbatch is buried to the left of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery in North London.

“Using digital print on canvas, newspaper, spray paint, and acrylic paint, I felt it was important to spotlight Claudia Jones and her work. ‘People without a voice were as lambs to the slaughter,’ she once said. Her ideology is as important as her image, so I also included snippets of her words on her clothing and lowered her image on the canvas to help you focus on the title of her essay, ‘An End to the Neglect of the Problems of a Negro Woman!’ The composition is a masterpiece and the foundation of her principles. Having the essay dawning the background only seemed right.”

- Artist Kevin Trent, Jr.

Like Us On

See Us On

Send Us an Email

Our Business Sponsor

This Way to More of "From These Shores"