Biography
Claudia Jones was Trinidadian-born, associated with the CPUSA Negro Affairs Commission, and the founder of Notting Hill Carnival. Smith Act 1951 NY group; 1 year + 1 day at FPC Alderson 1955. Deported to UK Dec 1955 (Trinidad refused entry); buried beside Marx in Highgate. Claudia Jones was an African-American activist, feminist, and member of the Communist Party who was deported in 1955 for joining the Communist Party as a non-US citizen. Before her deportation, she spent a year in prison for un-American activities.
She had continuously tried to make the American Communist Party more accepting of women, including Black women. She also published a work detailing how Black women have been especially oppressed due to their double-minority status with a Marxist viewpoint.
National Guardian, October 19, 1953, national page 16: The second Foley Square defendants were reported on restricted liberty awaiting appeal, and Alexander Bittelman, Claudia Jones and Betty Gannett had begun a test case of the Walter-McCarran law in the Foley Square federal court. This reports a legal challenge and appeal status, not a fresh arrest or completed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/national-guardian/1953-10-19-5-52-nat-guardian.pdf
The July 4, 1951 National Guardian individually named Claudia Jones among the New York Smith Act defendants who had been released on bail after their recent arrests. This pretrial release is distinct from any later sentence service; the report does not establish this person’s exact release day or a measured custody total. National Guardian, July 4, 1951, p. 5.
The released FBI file on Claudia Jones, New York file 100-81752, summarizes the federal Smith Act docket and identifies Claudia Jones as released on bail on July 20, 1951, during the 1951 bail proceedings. It separately records remand after the January 21, 1953 guilty verdict and actual release on appeal bail on February 10, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list identifies John T. McTernan as defense counsel for Claudia Jones. Source: FBI, released Claudia Jones file, New York 100-81752, sections on bail and sureties, counsel and trial proceedings. The file supplies these individual procedural phases without establishing a new complete custody total.
