Who is Claudia Jones?

Claudia Vera Jones née Cumberbatch, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist who, at eight years old, migrated to the United States from Port of Spain, Trinidad, in the British West Indies (Boyce Davies 159). Jones’ mother and father had arrived in the United States two years earlier, in 1922, when their economic circumstances had worsened as a result of the drop in the cocoa trade, which had impoverished the West Indies and the entire Caribbean (Boyce Davies 159). Like many Black people who migrated from the West Indies, Jones’ parents hoped to find fortunes in the United States, where ‘‘gold was to be found on the streets’’ and the dreams of rearing one’s children in a ‘‘free America’’ were said to be realized (Boyce Davies 159). However, the lie of the American dream was soon revealed, as Jones, her three sisters and her parents suffered exploitation and indignity at the hands of the white families and from the legacy of Jim Crow national policy (Boyce Davies 159).