ABSTRACT
Claudia Jones worked to achieve racial equality in both her adopted countries, the USA and Britain. She also wrote and campaigned against imperialism and for women’s rights worldwide.
Claudia Cumberbatch was born in the Belmont section of Port-of-Spain, the capital city of the British colony of Trinidad on 21 February 1915. According to her own account, her mother’s family were landowners and her father Charles’ in the hotel business, but the family’s financial circumstances declined when the price of cocoa dropped on the world market. In 1922, hoping to improve their prospects, Mr and Mrs Cumberbatch emigrated to the USA; their four daughters followed two years later. Claudia was attending Harriet Beecher Stowe Junior High School when her mother, a garment worker, died three years after their arrival. Poverty and overcrowding led to a year’s hospitalisation with tuberculosis.
