26 Reclaiming Claudia Jones Michigan Feminist Studies 27 Connie Johnson Reclaiming Claudia Jones: When a Black Feminist Marxist Defies McCarthyism Introduction Should one happen to research the life of Karl Marx, one will note that although he was born in Prussia, he was buried in London, England. This is probably quite logical, given that he spent the last 34 years of his life in London before his death in 1883. Marx is buried in the, now famous, Highgate Cemetery located at the top of Highgate Hill in North London. Highgate Cemetery serves as the final resting place of luminar- ies, including Michael Faraday, Henry Moore, and George Eliot.1 Internet websites and newspapers proudly announce the names of the dozen or more rich-and-famous writers who are also prominent occupants. But there is one name you probably will not find on most websites or travel brochures advertising the cemetery. And this is somewhat odd given that the deceased is buried so closely to the grave of Karl Marx, to his left- hand side. Her name is Claudia Jones. Little fanfare or interest in Claudia Jones may be expected given that she was not a famous actress, writer or novelist. But from the perspec- tive of someone who is keenly interested in the history of the Commu- nist Movement during the 1940s in the United States, the mere fact that Claudia Jones is buried to the left of one of our greatest socialist icons of all times speaks to an ideology—a left-wing ideology or politics better known as Marxism. Ironically, though Claudia Jones would prove to be 1 “Destinations UK – Highgate Cemetery London, England,” ” http://www.historic-uk. com/DestinationsUK/HighgateCemetery.htm .’ (Accessed April 2, 2009). Michigan Feminist Studies 27 one of Karl Marx’s greatest allies and the Communist Party’s (CP) most passionate supporters, the Jim Crow and segregationist laws in both the U.S. and Great Britain derailed almost all of her efforts. In this essay, I briefly outline the life of Claudia Jones and I ascribe some meaning to her efforts to become part of a movement that wanted nothing to do with her by looking at the theories and concepts of Louis Althusser and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, as well as those of her intellectual godfather, Karl Marx. Born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in 1915, Jones and her family migrated to New York City’s Harlem borough in 1922. Though Jones was well-educated and won scholastic honors as a high school student, she chose to work in menial, blue-collar jobs (e.g., laundry, factory) and became active in the community’s National Urban League chapter (West 2007). A key event that may have sparked Jones’ interest and commitment to civil rights was the Scottsboro Nine Case of 1931. The case involved nine black youths who were accused of raping two white prostitutes and had been tried without an attorney or adequate counsel. The false accusa- tions and notoriety surrounding the case certainly were not new; racism and hate crimes against African-Americans were nearly routine at the turn of the century. Whites responded with such fury and violence to the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 which freed slaves that the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) matter-of-factly published summaries about routine lynchings of black men and women. One representative publication asks, “Do you know that the United States is the only land on Earth where human beings are burned at the stake?” (Corpis & Fletcher 2003: 283). Mob lynchings, torture and vigilante mobs of whites who resented blacks that operated competing stores and businesses regularly ransacked towns and homes and lynched African- Americans2 on a regular basis (Moses 1997; McDermott 1999). As such, the trial of the Scottsboro boys was simply a marker that was reflective of the virulent racism that overshadowed the era. However, the trial was critical in that it exposed Jones to the CP through its legal defense of the 2 The term “African-American” and “black” will be used interchangeably in this essay to describe a person of African-American descent. 28 Reclaiming Claudia Jones Michigan Feminist Studies 29 Scottsboro Nine. The International Labor Defense group, a civil rights defense association formed by the CP, was key in the representation of the young men during the repeated trials, all of which found the men guilty with their convictions and death penalty sentences overturned in 1932 and 1935 (DeWitt 2008: 89). After many years of ongoing trials, the men were eventually found not guilty and freed. And though, of course, there is no clear evidence that the trial was the impetus for Jones’ involvement with the CP, she joined the Young Communist League in 1936 (West 2007). Even prior to her joining and becoming active in the CP, Jones’ interest and desire to work in a series of blue-collar positions, instead of attending college, may have played an even greater role in setting the course for her activism in the CP. Jones’ affinity for contextualizing her own identity within the space of workers and the labor movement may be seen as integral to her motiva- tion to become active with the CP. Jones understood that the crisis of the black working class was based on a capitalism that could only “raise itself above black labor in a legalized caste system which cut-off competition” if it were to succeed (DuBois 1992: 93). Jones’ efforts to correct that dis- parity began at the early age of 25 when she became the National Director of the Young Communist League in 1941. Though Jones would go on to become one of the CP’s most prolific and vocal activists for the next 20 years, both in the United States and Great Britain, very little has been published on her work as a CP activist. Though Brent Hayes Edwards (2001) admits a growing body of scholarship has emerged that takes into consideration black participation in Marxism, signifying an orientation that has shifted “from unraveling the intricacies of organized communism to elucidating the complex parameters of African diasporic radicalism in all its varieties” (Edwards 2001: 1), the fact remains that the literature scarcely touches the surface in relation to Jones’ work. Reclaiming Claudia Jones Efforts in recovering and reclaiming the artifacts that detail the life of Claudia Jones are difficult, given the U.S. government’s intent to subvert and erase Jones from both the mainstream media and public memory. Michigan Feminist Studies 29 To illustrate the paucity of literature on Jones’ life and her contributions to the CP, existing texts include a doctoral thesis, a master’s thesis, and several websites, some of which are noted in both the footnotes and final bibliography of this paper. Kate Weigand’s Red Feminism (2001) is an exception, given that she generously cites Jones more than a dozen times throughout her text regarding women’s activism in the CP from 1935 to 1960. Weigand is very careful in documenting Jones’ efforts to eradicate the pervasive sense of male supremacy that haunted the CP, in spite of remonstrations in the forms of regular articles and memos, written by Claudia Jones, Eleanor Flexner, and other key women in the organization. If Jones endured any covert or overt hostilities or reactions from other Party members, Weigand makes it abundantly clear that Jones was also one of the most valued members of the CP and was treated as such (Weigand 2001: 91). In devoting an entire chapter to Jones’ work (Chapter 5, “Claudia Jones and the Synthesis of Gender, Race, and Class”), Weigand freely admits the dilemma that faced black women who struggled to become active in the CP, in spite of the racial tensions and chauvinist attitudes that hindered them. Predictably, white male chauvinism and racism existed within the CP, but one of Jones’ primary missions was to make sure the Party was well aware of the “triple oppression status” that shackled black women during the McCarthy era (Weigand 2001: 100-101). Another notable exception to the dearth of research on Jones is the text compiled by Carole Boyce Davies. A professor of English at Florida International University, Davies’ Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2007) is probably one of the few in- depth analyses of Jones’ life which also provides theoretical and episte- mological insight on her work. In her text, Davies emphasizes Jones’ focus on worker’s rights outside the Party and the rights of women work- ers within it. When Jones was appointed as editor of the “Negro Affairs” unit of the Daily Worker in 1945, Davies refers to an article in which Jones is “clearly speaking back to the Communist Party as well as clarify- ing her own position” regarding the economic dependence of women on men under conditions of male domination and women’s inability to work actively on the production side of labor (51-52). 30 Reclaiming Claudia Jones Michigan Feminist Studies 31 Despite her position as one of the few African-American women in a leadership position within the CP, Jones did not have tremendous success in converting large numbers of black men or women to Communism. This, in part, may have had more to do with fear of Jim Crow brutality and retaliation if caught engaged with the CP than an unwillingness to consider the merits of social change or equality. Segregation was almost de rigueur in the U.S. between 1940-50. As such, one can only marvel at Jones’ accomplishments, both in the number of speaking engagements that she held as well as her contributions as editor of the Negro affairs unit at the Daily Worker.