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CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

 25 

 

                                                                                  

 
 

                                                       

Claudia Jones, The Person and The Idea 
 
Dmitri Gourianov  

Centre for Caribbean Studies 

Faculty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto 

 
Dmitri Gourianov is a fourth-year student studying Political Science at the University of Toronto. 

                                                                                  
 
KEYWORDS: 

Claudia Jones 

Marxism 

Intersectionality 

Feminism 

Political thought 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
ABSTRACT 

                                                                                        
Carol Boyce Davies' influential work, Left of Karl Marx, describes the life and time of Claudia Jones, a not very well-known, 

influential 20th-century Marxist thinker. Through an in-depth look at the trials and tribulations Jones underwent, 

whether it be her time in prison or her deportation to England, Davies captures her essence and thoroughly analyzes her 

political development. However, what is left lacking in her discussion of Jones' life is Davies' reasoning as to why the 

grandmother of intersectionality was left out of the history books, both by Capitalists and Socialists alike. In this work, I 

use Davies' work on Claudia Jones' life to discern why this is the case and how the factors contributing to her erasure 

from the public consciousness were so influential in their efforts. By the end of this review, I look at how the separation 

of one from their ideas plays a pivotal role in their erasure and how this occurred to Claudia Jones. 

 

As a history buff, I relished my only visit to London. Not 
only did I take the opportunity to visit several museums, 
but I also visited Karl Marx's grave. Although I did not un-
derstand at the time why some visitors were visiting the 
grave to the left of the famous theorist, I still noticed that 
the headstone read "Claudia Jones" and promptly forgot 
about this until a month ago. I did not realize that this 
woman I knew nothing about until this year would be 
someone I will never forget. After reading her biography 
Left of Karl Marx by Carol Boyce Davies, Claudia Jones' 
mark on Marxist theory is blatantly evident, as her theory 
of super-exploitation expanded the relevance of Marxism 
to incorporate race and gender into its class analysis. The 

experiences which shaped Claudia Jones' political thinking 
were primarily tied to the sexism and racism she endured, 
as well as the personal relationships which influenced her 
growth as a person. Her under-appreciation as a writer and 
political thinker can also arguably be due to the simplifica-
tion of her character as a leftist/woman/black person rather 
than a multidimensional human being. This kind of 
thought is intrinsically tied to the unique issues experi-
enced by black women, and unfortunately, these issues per-
sist today. 
 
On the topics of racial, sexual, and worker justice, Jones 
astutely observed that a fight for one was also a fight for 

Caribbean Quilt 
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CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

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all, seeing that to divide such ideas and goals meant the 
campaigns would collapse. One must not forget the unique 
experiences of any three, nor the experiences of those who 
suffer injustices in multiple camps at once. For Jones, the 
movement would only progress once black women were 
allowed to play a central role in the proletariat's emancipa-
tion. In her work For The Unity of Women in The Cause of 
Peace, she outlines the importance of the militancy of 
black women. "We can accelerate the militancy of Negro 
women to the degree with which we demonstrate that the 
economic, political and social demands of Negro women 
are not just ordinary demands, but special demands flow-
ing from special discrimination facing Negro women as 
women, as workers, and as Negroes" (Jones, 1951). For 
scholars such as John McClendon, Davies explains and 
agrees with, maintains that Jones' work ought to be first 
understood through a Marxist lens, as her feminist stance 
did not come from a drive towards identity politics but ra-
ther as a tool of unifying both sexes of the working class 
(Davies, 2007). Davies concludes that by taking a closer 
look at Jones’ writing in her work For the Unity of Women 
in the Cause of Peace, there can be found a progression in 
the hierarchy of importance in the stages of struggle, which 
begins with women co-managing the campaign for worker 
equality alongside men and ends with Socialism. That be-
ing said, the weakness of McClendon's argument was also 
pointed out by Davies, as simplifying Jones' views to a 
purely class struggle-based worldview lacks the depth 
Jones proposes by focusing on all social issues simultane-
ously. This is because negating the unique experience 
working black women have in the movement does not con-
sider the link between black women and Socialism Jones 
is suggesting. This idea was very personal for Jones, as she 
experienced pressure even from social groups she was a 
part of.  
 
On domestic work, Jones wrote her views about women's 
conditions. She writes, ''The lot of the domestic worker is 
unbearable misery. Usually, she has no definition of tasks 
in the household where she works. Domestic workers may 
have 'thrown in' in addition to cleaning and scrubbing, such 
tasks as washing windows, caring for the children, laun-
dering, cooking, etc. and all at the lowest pay'' (Davies, 
2007); that is to say, no pay at all. While these sentiments 

have slowly been changing in recent decades, with a grow-
ing cohort of husbands helping their wives around the 
house, the position many women find themselves in this 
day is untenable if the goal is to construct an egalitarian 
society. However, sexism did not stop at housework, as 
Foster and Jones agreed that the Communist Party USA 
struggled with winning over women to the cause over its 
male-centric leadership and management (Davies, 2007). 
 
Similarly, Jones saw the lengths certain women had to go 
to stay safe. An example of this would be her recollection 
of Billie Holiday's incarceration at Alderson Prison, where 
she refused to perform for a party at the warden's office on 
the grounds of "violating" her contract (Davies, 2007), 
with what seems to be the more plausible reason is to avoid 
harm from her male guards through a vague legal defence. 
There would be no way to tell if Holiday were to violate 
her contract on such grounds when asked by the officers, 
but one shivers to think of the potential consequences a 
group of men could bestow upon the singer. Other women 
would not be so lucky, as Jones and the Sojourners often 
invoke the story of Rosie Lee Ingram, a mother of fourteen 
who faced life imprisonment for defending herself against 
a white supremacist who attempted to rape her (Davies, 
2007). A similar case was that of Assata Shakur, who had 
to resist attempted rapes while imprisoned before her es-
cape. Jones' experiences with sexism were only one factor 
influencing her theory, and racism would play an equally 
important role.  
 
While she was unashamedly a feminist, she was, more im-
portantly, a black feminist, which made many white 
women uncomfortable. Davies describes the barriers to 
Jones' activism from other women, writing: "this was not 
an easy position for Jones to advance, and it exposed her 
to a great deal of criticism from white women and the 
charge that she was guilty of 'reverse chauvinism'. Jones 
was not directly attacking white women, though she felt 
that the corporate media was complicit in this representa-
tion of white women for all women" (Davies, 2007). This 
experience is eerily similar to contemporary discussions 
around race, with the term "reverse racism" having been 
catapulted into the mainstream not a decade ago. Even 
more so, as today the term "intersectionality" has come to 



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mean Jones' "super-exploitation"; and so then it must be 
recognized that today we find ourselves not strictly in an 
orthodox Marxist dialogue, but a Jonesian one, for lack of 
a better term. Jones describes this super-exploitation in her 
own words: ''the most oppressed stratum of the whole pop-
ulation [are black women]... Capitalists exploit woman 
doubly, both as workers and women. Woman has to face 
special oppression in every field in capitalist society—as a 
worker—a wife, a home builder and a citizen'' (Jones, 
1951). This idea must have been understood by the US 
government, at least to a degree, as deporting Jones to Lon-
don and not the Caribbean impeded her organization's ef-
forts. Not because of anti-Communist sentiments in Lon-
don but because she was first and foremost seen by London 
Communist leadership as a black woman and then as a 
comrade. When Claudia Jones arrived in the UK, she had 
a reception Davies describes as "lukewarm," which was in 
contrast to the "resounding sendoff" from the Communist 
Party USA, showing her that she would have to climb the 
ranks despite the colour of her skin once again (Davies, 
2007). Nevertheless, then again, the story of Claudia Jones 
is not so simple. If she were forgotten by history because 
she was just black or a woman, this would not correlate so 
well with her total eradication, and because of this, the 
stripping of her humanity played the third important role 
in her erasure.  
 
Call me a romantic, but it does not seem to be the case that 
she was stomped out of history so thoroughly simply be-
cause she was a minority, but rather that her essence, her 
soul (for lack of a better term), was first stripped away by 
those who did not, or could not, understand her as a person. 
Even the most progressive individuals, those who support 
feminism and the eradication of racism, can slip into the 
pitfalls of separating the person from their idea. Claudia 
Jones was more than just a black person, a woman, or a 
Communist; she had individuals who played vital roles in 
developing her political thinking. For one, she would not 
have gotten into journalism (or at least not as enthusiasti-
cally) without her father. Growing up, her father was a 
journalist for one of the black newspapers in Harlem, and 
Davies describes Claudia's interest in the field because of 
her father and the career's link to political expression (Da-
vies, 2007). By making such an impact in her life, 

Claudia's father ignited a passion and drive that would later 
see her interviewing other essential figures such as Martin 
Luther King Jr. and W. E. B. Du Bois. In addition to this, 
her relationships also played vital roles in her development. 
Jones was married for a time to Abraham Scholnick but 
later divorced over alleged extramarital relations on Jones' 
part (one of the presumed men being Howard Johnson) 
(Davies, 2007). However, this is one topic where it is easy 
to separate Jones the person from Jones the idea. As little 
is known about what occurred, it is easy to over-sexualize 
her, and for many, this would be enough to discredit her 
ideas. 
 
Moreover, Davies outlines a second inclination by Claudia 
to marry soon after arriving in London, presumably to Ab-
himanyu Manchanda whom she had an intimate relation-
ship toward the end of her life (Davies, 2007). Like any 
other, their relationship had difficulties and moments of joy, 
which allowed her time to relax amidst the constant cam-
paigning. Davies also suggests that this period of love with 
Manchada developed Claudia's analyses and political de-
cisions, one being changing her newspaper's name to in-
clude "Asian" news and her burgeoning interest in Com-
munist China (Davies, 2007). Her health can also be seen 
as a point of politicization. An article written about Claudia 
during her time in prison was captioned ''Claudia Jones De-
nied Diet Prescribed for Heart Illness''. By bringing atten-
tion to her treatment in prison, although rightly so, the 
reader inevitably concludes that refusing prison food is 
also an act of protest, turning her into a revolutionary fig-
ure even when she may not have intended this (although 
she was very revolutionary). After all this analysis, the 
question of why her contributions are underappreciated 
still needs answering.  
 
To this question, the bluntest answer would be stupidity. 
The more nuanced answer would be stupidity, as defined 
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's theory of stupidity 
purports that it is not a lack of intelligence but rather a 
moral defect which arises naturally when a group of people 
come across a loud, powerful, and self-assured individual 
(Bonhoeffer, 1951). It matters little whether the ideas pro-
moted are logical or well-argued; stupidity is the herd men-
tality that anyone can succumb to when faced with such an 



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2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

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authoritative speaker, especially in an authoritative system. 
This phenomenon could also be described as the lack of 
consciousness, or in Claudia Jones' case, a people's lack of 
class consciousness. This is why her ideas were too dan-
gerous for states to keep around, as Davies describes the 
goal of Jones' journalism as "the education of the commu-
nity [as the] priority, as it was in all of the other journalistic 
activity in which Claudia Jones was engaged" (Davies, 
2007). Even when it came to the carnival in London, Clau-
dia attempted to appeal to the human need for community 
and then, secondly, educate those who came. 
 
For this reason, the London carnival is seen by Davies as 
one of the most successful events in making Caribbean cul-
ture central to the British experience, even when British 
comrades opposed its continuation due to its pageantry 
(Davies, 2007). What these other Communists did not re-
alize, however, is once again the human aspect they at-
tempted to separate from their ideas, and Claudia Jones' 
ability to maintain the unity between these two concepts 
made her frighteningly effective. However, one's tech-
niques only remain effective insofar as they outlive you, 
and unfortunately, the dogmatism of Capitalists and Left-
ists alike who did not fundamentally understand why these 
concepts could not be separated was the ultimate downfall 
of Jones' work. Today, we only remember her work be-
cause of those who ensure that human is not cut from their 
idea, and concepts such as leftist unity and intersectionality 
show this. Perhaps, then, we ought to remember that all 
politics is the need to be wanted, to keep safe, and to love 
one another and that although ideas are a powerful weapon, 
they are useless once we allow them to be stripped of their 
humanity. Claudia deserves to be remembered as the intel-
ligent person she was and still is.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 

                                                                      
Boyce Davies, C. Left of Karl Marx (2007). Left of Karl Marx (utoronto.ca) 

 

Jones, C. For The Unity of Women in The Cause of Peace (1951) 

 

Bonhoeffer, D. Letters and Papers from Prison (1951). Letters and Papers from Prison (fortresspress.com) 

 


