EP 6 Claudia Jones - The Red Activist I Women And Resistance 🌍

In this conversation, Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla explores the life and legacy of Claudia Jones, a prominent activist and feminist who fought for civil rights and socialism. 
The discussion covers her early life in Trinidad, her immigration to the United States, her political activism, struggles with the law, and her lasting impact on society. 
The conversation emphasizes the importance of resistance, education, and solidarity in the fight for justice and equality.

Takeaways

*Claudia Jones was born on February 21st, 1915, in Trinidad.
*She immigrated to the United States with her family seeking a better life.
*Jones became involved in activism and joined the Communist Party in 1936.
*She faced multiple arrests for her political beliefs and activism.
*Jones emphasized the importance of youth engagement in activism.
*Her work highlighted the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression.
*Claudia Jones was a key figure in the fight for civil rights for black women.
*She founded the West Indian Gazette to educate and inform her community.
*Jones believed in the power of socialism to achieve equality and justice.
*Her legacy continues to inspire current and future generations of activists.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Claudia Jones
06:51 Claudia's Early Life and Immigration to America
17:01 Activism and the Communist Party
21:07 Claudia's Role in the Communist Party
21:22 The Early Struggles: Arrests and Activism
24:14 The Fight for Equality: Gender, Race, and Class
25:37 The Consequences of Speaking Out: Arrests and Trials
28:04 Life in Prison: Resilience and Creativity
29:29 Deportation and the Reality of Colonialism
39:40 Organizing in London: The West Indian Gazette
45:49 Solidarity and Connection: The Fight Continues
46:28 Struggles and Sacrifices in Activism
48:48 Cultural Resistance and Community Building
51:43 The Legacy of Carnival and Collective Memory
53:10 The Fight Against Oppression and Solidarity
59:00 Reflections on Life, Death, and Legacy

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.548)
Yes, greetings, greetings. Welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. And tonight we are looking at the red activist, Claudia Jones. And who is Claudia Jones? We are going to find out.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:22.472)
Women and resistance. I do that every week.

Adesoji Iginla (00:26.418)
in a series of conversations about who she is and try as much as possible to tie her life and times to our current times and see what sort of lessons we can learn from her. So with me as usual is my co-host.

My sister from another mother, Aya Fubara Eneli. Welcome sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:56.786)
Well, thank you. And you caught me at a... not the best of times, because I was just getting ready. You know, today is when we go before the court. I've been out on bail.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13.644)
yes, yes, yes, for, what's the, what's the, what's the crime again? For having dangerous ideas and sharing dangerous ideas.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23.304)
Yes, for thinking. For thinking, because in their minds, specifically for a Negro woman, or as I would now claim as an African woman, because I'm very clear about my African ancestry, that they think we are not capable of thinking.

and speaking and writing. And that too is part of my crime.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:04.093)
since you caught me in this vulnerable time, if you would indulge me, I will share a little bit about something that I wrote earlier this evening.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:18.547)
Tonight, I tried to imagine what life would be like in the future.

Adesoji Iginla (02:27.534)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:30.995)
Personal that is For on the broad highway of tomorrow despite the craggy heels and unforeseen gullies I am certain I am certain that mankind will take the high road to a socialist future

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:50.631)
But my certitude for this broad future has never matched my certitude for my personal fortune.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:05.093)
I have not been endowed either with the ability to apply that certitude or indeed to experience its harbingers. Perhaps dialectically, this is why my very certitude and commitment has overshadowed in the eyes of some of my personal interest in people.

To those with whom I share this broad vision, this seeming weakness has been resented, or more kindly, if not resented, rejected.

Whereas this characteristic has impinged on personal relationships, it has nevertheless served as a liberating force making and shaping the being that I have become. I in turn have rejected any tendency to reduce this result, even perhaps to stifle its evocation.

Adesoji Iginla (04:14.094)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:18.031)
Evocation is a mutual emotion. To evoke a response of togetherness in all things.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:31.527)
But maturity tells me this is probably impossible in a single relationship.

and remembering human limitations. There must be togetherness.

Togetherness also is not an abstraction. Its inner laws and contradictions must be studied and you might be wondering why would I be writing in this way? You know I was once married, right?

Adesoji Iginla (05:00.908)
Yeah. Really? To whom?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:03.655)
years. Abraham shlonek but he will remain a footnote because that's not what is important.

Adesoji Iginla (05:12.674)
Mmm, a footnote.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:15.825)
I intended to marry again. There is speculation as to who. Some may say Howard Stretch Johnson. I don't respond.

Adesoji Iginla (05:31.768)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:34.599)
There is so much more that I can share that I wrote, but I will end with this.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:46.484)
I have never been able to condone personal weakness. And therein perhaps is another antagonistic contradiction. Fundamentally, regarding the impermissibility of personal weakness, not entirely lacking in my own share of these, I seek to counter my own and others with a harshness that is also impermissible in close relationships.

For most of my adult years, this has been the essence of my approach. I find I have been praised for a single mindedness of purpose. And this is true enough. Only my sincerest friends have observed the one sidedness of my existence. Something, again, the characteristic rears its head. I have hardly allowed myself to admit.

far less to fully examine.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:49.139)
Perhaps a third reason, happily I do not publicly avow or practice this characteristic, at root has been a protective one, a general personal injury. Those who truly know me know this, and I have often, even as I strike back, the verbal flows from which I flee are nourished in an identical soul.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:17.533)
Fearing the perpetuation of this one-sidedness and personal relation, I persist in it.

fearing the disappointment of non-togetherness. Knowing that evocation of a different approach means change on my part. And yet I have no certitude that change will strengthen togetherness.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:50.343)
Penchant that I have for introspective discussion. I seem to have wound up where I began.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:01.637)
I bore no one but myself.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:09.843)
I have admitted nothing, but sought to analyze all of this for self understanding. I find I have deluded myself. Conscious though I am, that delusion is unrealistic, can never replace togetherness or evoke happiness.

nor even sympathetic friendship or understanding.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:44.239)
And as I become too aware of this state, the state in which you find me today.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:59.699)
I don't even want to try to change. I realize not only have I become lethargic in these matters, a state not to be emulated, but positively without nerve.

all weavers know of tangled skeins, the bad thoughts that then becomes threads to deceive. Sometimes they can be untangled and sometimes they serve as webs.

how I believe the loom of language and in the family of man. But you did not come to hear my musing. You did not come to see any sense of vulnerability that I might show. This was something that I actually never did. And so as I prepare,

Adesoji Iginla (09:38.04)
Musins.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:55.796)
Let's talk about the Claudia Jones that you have come to hear of. I was born on February 21st, 1915 in Belmont, Port of Spain, in Trinidad and Tobago.

Adesoji Iginla (10:01.761)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:15.141)
I still have fond memories. You know, my mother's family, they were landowners. And my father's family, they owned hotels.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:30.203)
and then cocoa prices dropped and our area was thrown into this tailspin economically.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:41.787)
And like many other people from my area, my parents left for the United States of America to try and make a better home.

They left me and my three sisters behind, but we knew they were going to send for us. Of course, we were all excited about this great America that we've heard of, though we hadn't seen.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:15.813)
on February 9th.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:20.761)
We arrived with my aunt, my aunt Alice Glasgow. She brought me and my three sisters to New York. It was a wondrous journey. Not the most comfortable, but we knew we were going to a better place. And that excitement and getting to see our parents again was all that mattered.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:48.54)
We arrived on the SS Voltaire in New York City. My sisters, Lindsay and Irene and Sylvia.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:02.589)
What is this strange place? It looked nothing like home.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:12.753)
quarters were squalid. My father initially had a job as an editor of an American West Indian newspaper, but remember this was also during the Depression and we soon found ourselves

Adesoji Iginla (12:27.563)
Jim Crow.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:35.655)
I suppose better off than some. My father got a job as a super for a building, so he basically is the one who fixes up everything, and we lived in the basement.

damp with the sewer running you could basically say right through our quarters.

My mother worked in the garment industry. Long, arduous hours. We were always happy when she would get back because there were always stories of fires and people who had been hurt, women falling out from sheer exhaustion. I must get ready for my event, so you must pardon me as I tell you this story.

Adesoji Iginla (13:27.81)
Before you go further, I noticed you introduce yourself as Claudia Jones. But records shows that you go by different name.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:33.587)
Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:39.921)
Well, I was born Claudia Vera Cumberbatch.

Adesoji Iginla (13:46.552)
So.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:47.592)
But you have to understand that it's important to pay attention to where you are and what's going on. And to protect my family, because my choices did not have to be theirs. I chose a fairly innocuous name, Jones. And you know what? Hm.

Adesoji Iginla (13:55.127)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:13.223)
The FBI amassed over 870 pages of surveillance on me, my writings, where I went.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:26.301)
I guess they were helping me write my autobiography. Excuse me?

Adesoji Iginla (14:26.478)
Why do you think they took an interest in you? Considering you're just a...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:34.747)
I was getting to that part. Same reason I am now getting ready to go to court to hear what this judge has to say about my sentencing.

Well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:53.627)
So well initially did I hide my origins that it took the FBI five years to figure out that Claudia Jones was Claudia Vera Comberbatch. I did it to protect my family.

Adesoji Iginla (15:05.998)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:11.407)
So, I get to this country and like all other kids, I suppose, I enroll in school. I attended the Wadley High School. I was active in the Junior NAACP. I studied drama at the Urban League. I performed in Harlem and Brooklyn. Listen, I come from a proud people. My parents, no matter what,

economic situation we found ourselves in, which was similar to what even the Negroes in America were experiencing. The racism, the discrimination. Can you imagine teachers at my school as classes are being dismissed asking the Negro children, would you like to wear pretty apron today?

You know what they were asking? They wanted us to come and serve at their parties as servants to make an extra buck or two, because they knew just how destitute we were. They never made those same offers to the white students. That is the environment in which I was supposed to cultivate my mind. But because of who my parents were and what they had taught me,

I knew I was more than what they were trying to make me be. I was a great student. I loved words. I loved language.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:52.819)
was 18 years old.

When my mother.

Sybil Mini Magdalene Cumberbatch, New Logan.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:08.123)
died.

She just plain slumped.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:17.797)
in her place at that garment factory.

shed meningitis.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:35.813)
Not too long after that, with my father struggling to raise four girls on his own.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:44.339)
I was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

and I spent a year in a sanitarium.

That is how it was back in those days.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:01.681)
Most people who got tuberculosis died. There was no treatment. We did not have the antibiotics that you have today.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:12.487)
But you know what?

It wasn't all bad.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:20.519)
They had to give us fresh air and nutritious food, I guess. They were trying to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. There were others there. In fact, there was a Jewish girl there who needed a blood transfusion. And I was a perfect match.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:45.551)
and all the other white people there were so concerned about the mixing of black and white blood.

Adesoji Iginla (18:55.66)
Interesting.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:56.595)
Take it or leave it. You need my blood to live.

And so we had the blood transfusion and the white people there waited with bated breath to see what happens when black and white blood mixes. They were expecting her to turn black.

Adesoji Iginla (19:20.846)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:28.497)
A young Jewish doctor came and spoke to the whole group and tried to break down the science of it and tell them how silly and misguided they were.

You know, my father always says, a woman is never fully dressed without her necklace.

Adesoji Iginla (19:56.108)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:00.294)
I survived the one year there. Some would speculate that I would forever suffer from the lingering effects of tuberculosis and its impact on my lungs and my heart. I went back to high school.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:24.313)
I excelled, but I did not go to my graduation.

Adesoji Iginla (20:30.86)
Why not?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:37.883)
I was scheduled to get an award at that graduation. I'd been a great student.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:52.143)
me, the daughter, granddaughter of landowners and the daughter of a woman who worked in a garment factory. I had nothing to wear.

I cried my eyes out that day. There's so many ways that...

Discrimination, racism impacts the lives of, call us Negroes, call us Blacks, call us Africans. We feel it in a very different way than most other people.

I did not go on to college, I did not have the money for it, and quite frankly I needed to help my family, and so I worked a number of jobs, I worked at a laundromat, I worked at a factory, I worked at a millinery, but I loved to use my mind.

and those mundane tasks day in day out. You know in one of those jobs, my job was to take a toothpick and to put this putty in this little nail hole all day long.

Adesoji Iginla (22:05.964)
Yes, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:09.147)
and then the streets of Harlem. my gosh, it was bustling with life.

We were suffering financially, but you can't keep our spirits down. And there were people talking and sharing information and educating these speakers on the corners.

And this was about the time with the Scottsboro case. Did you hear about the Scottsboro Nine?

Adesoji Iginla (22:38.508)
yeah yeah yeah they they framing up

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:41.905)
The framing, so before, I know in your day and age, long after I had made my exit from this world, you all have something called the Central Park Five, which became the Exonerated Five, but before them were the Scottsboro Nine.

Young boys, youngest I believe 13, riding the trains and trying to find work.

these racist officers accuse them of raping two white women.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:19.091)
They were gonna kill those boys.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:24.817)
At the same time, I was learning about what was going on with Italy and Ethiopia. What is wrong with these people that they can just not let us live in peace? And I started to see the connections between all of these lives, my life, the lives of my parents, the death of my mother at 37.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:54.513)
What is it to be a young woman?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:00.466)
without the presence and nurturing of your mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:09.543)
And that's when I discovered the Communist Party.

Adesoji Iginla (24:14.646)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:15.399)
They impressed me because they made persuasive connections between the struggle against fascism overseas and the race and Clarence Norris of the Scottsboro boys was your uncle.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:36.775)
These are our stories, but they're not just stories. And that's why I allowed you to see me in a way that most people never saw me when I was alive, stepping out of my house. I allowed you to see me, me, Claudia, Vera, Cumberbatch, the eight year old who came here with so many hopes and dreams came to the United States of America. But

with the communist party, showed the connections between the struggle against fascism overseas and the race and class oppression that I was experiencing right here.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:17.137)
And guess what? It was the Communist Party that funded the defense of the Scottsboro Nine. Now I knew about the NAACP because as I told you, I had been a member of the junior NAACP. But on this case, they were nowhere to be found.

Adesoji Iginla (25:37.996)
Hmm, why didn't they take off the case though?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:42.247)
Well, there are all kinds of reasons that have been put out there, some of which happened to be, had to do with race and the concern of...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:00.773)
Speaking up in defense of black boys who may have been accused of raping white women. I don't know if they thought that that would

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:14.563)
their supporters, their Jewish and their white supporters, not to fund them anymore? I'm not really sure. I do know, and history shows, that the NAACP repeatedly made some very bad decisions in my opinion, including putting out a man who would become my mentor, W.E.B. Du Bois.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:42.715)
I joined the party in 1936.

Adesoji Iginla (26:48.982)
of the height of the second world war.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:52.177)
Yes, I joined the Young Communist League and I was assigned to the youth movement. See, they had a system. They had a system of educating us, of letting us, making sure that we understood what communism was really about. I was a fast learner. By 1937, I had become the associate editor of the Weekly Review.

and the secretary of the executive committee of the Young Communist League in Harlem. I was employed in the business department of the daily worker and I attended a six month training school of the Communist Party. There different ways to get an education, but I knew I had to get my mind going.

I knew that was important to the work I wanted to do. By 1938, I was the New York State Chair and National Council member of the Young Communist League.

I attended the National Council of Negro Youth, the Southern Negro Congress, the National Negro Congress, and I visited the American Congress. And it was also this year that I filed preliminary papers for US citizenship.

Adesoji Iginla (28:18.318)
So how did that turn out?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:21.191)
They turned me down.

At this time, there was no real reason given and certainly the fact that I was part of the Communist Party was not yet an issue as far as I can tell, but they denied it.

In 1940, I married Abraham Schwanek.

I divorced him in 1947. I had work to do. In 1941, I became the educational director of the Young Communist League. So in five years, I went from joining the party to being the educational director.

In 1942, aggressive surveillance by the FBI on me began. Of course, I did not really know this at the time.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:22.448)
In 1943, I was the editor-in-chief of the Weekly Review.

In 1943, I also became the editor of Spotlight, American Youth for Democracy. I held that position until 1945. A lot of reading, a lot of thinking, a lot of writing, and a lot of talking to people with whom I could have these conversations and engage in ideas.

Adesoji Iginla (29:43.103)
end of the Second World War.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:56.882)
and to think about how we put these ideas into action for the liberation of people. Socialism, we knew, was the cure.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:08.595)
As I stated, I divorced on February 27, 1947, just a few days after my birthday. And I became the secretary of the Women's Commission for the Communist Party of the USA.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:27.603)
1948 was an interesting year. I was arrested for the first time, for the first time, because there were to be many other arrests, on January 19th. And I was imprisoned on Ellis Island under the 1918 Immigration Act. Ellis Island, the same home of the Statue of Liberty.

Adesoji Iginla (30:52.014)
sorry spot of liberty.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:55.483)
And do you know the history of that statue, of that woman? Do you know about the broken chains by her feet that are not often shown? And if this is a new story to you, well, here is an invitation to go learn more.

Adesoji Iginla (31:05.932)
I defeat. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:20.691)
I was imprisoned on Ellis Island and released on a $1,000 bail, January 20th, $1,000 bail back in 1948. At that point, I was threatened with deportation to Trinidad.

Adesoji Iginla (31:28.238)
$1000 then.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:44.958)
They weren't going to silence me though. I spoke at a May Day rally in Los Angeles. I was assigned by the party to work with working class and black party women for peace and equality. Because of this, I was clear.

There was no liberation for the whole if half of the world

was being exploited and for black woman, for the Negro woman, for the African woman, she was super exploited because it was an issue not just of class, which is what the communism party, the Marxist theory, that focus was on class, but it was class, it was gender, and it was race.

Adesoji Iginla (32:31.214)
We'll ya.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:35.507)
These weren't just things I knew academically. My mother died at age 37. Slumped.

in her workplace in the garment factory.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:55.408)
That year...

From 1948 to 1949, I traveled to 43 US states, many of them in the South, the Black Belt. It was to inform an essay that I later wrote, because I truly believe that the Negro in America is a nation within a nation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:25.243)
Well, the deportation hearings began. But guess what? They got so frustrated because they could not get anyone to testify against me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:41.223)
So temporarily they dropped it while I continued with my work.

Some may say this is maybe about the time that Lorraine Hansberry and I met who were actually roommates for a while. We know she got married to her husband in 1953 and I was married up until 1947. Since she didn't move to New York until 1950. So somewhere probably between 1950 and 1953 when she got married would have been when we were roommates.

In 1950, the deportation hearings resumed on February 16th.

Adesoji Iginla (34:17.376)
Zoomed in.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:21.107)
I continued with my work on deterred. was appointed alternate member of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA. I gave a speech in March on International Women's Day and the struggle for peace. And if you have not read that yet, I do humbly beseech you to read it because everything I wrote and talked about in 1950 is still relevant today.

Adesoji Iginla (34:49.356)
Yeah, very much so. Very much so.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:52.039)
And I must say that it breaks my heart to say that.

because the certitude that I had for our future.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:05.469)
did not include this continued super exploitation of my kind so many decades after my transition.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:21.351)
This speech that I gave on International Women's Day was later cited in the court papers as an overt act.

And it led to my second arrest on October 23, 1950. Again, I was held at Ellis Island under the McCarran Act. And then detained at New York City Women's Prison November 17, and finally released on bail on December 21. And again, I was served with a deportation order.

But I will not be silenced.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:11.057)
I believe it was Zora Neale Hurston who later on wrote that if you're silent...

Adesoji Iginla (36:21.41)
You've accepted what has been done to you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:22.695)
They will say, no, they will say that you enjoyed it.

Adesoji Iginla (36:26.367)
Dude.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:29.991)
Billy Audre Lorde reminded us that our silence will not save us.

Adesoji Iginla (36:34.157)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:36.319)
So in 1951, I spoke in Harlem while on bail.

that singularness of purpose.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:50.725)
The same thing.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:56.743)
that may have cost me that evocation, those meaningful, intimate relationships with people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:11.141)
And as you can imagine.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:16.165)
I got arrested again on June 29th under the Smith Act, this time along with 16 other communists, and this time my bail was $20,000.

Adesoji Iginla (37:33.39)
$50,000

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:36.103)
The date was July 23rd, 1951.

Adesoji Iginla (37:40.366)
1951 $20,000

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:42.567)
and the deportation hearing continued.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:49.876)
From 1952 to 1953, I served on the National Peace Commission to end the Korean War.

on January 21st.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:12.883)
1953. I was convicted under the Smith Act and I was sentenced to one year and a day and a $200 fine.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:31.635)
Some of my comrades got longer sentences.

I believe that I got the sentence that I did due to my health. As a matter of fact, at the end of my trial, before my conviction, I suffered a heart attack, I suffered heart failure and I was hospitalized for 21 days.

And again in December, I was hospitalized again and diagnosed with hypertensive cardiovascular disease.

Adesoji Iginla (39:10.616)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:13.467)
It was 1953.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:20.443)
wasn't even 40 years old.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:26.811)
As a matter of fact, I was just a few months older than when my mother died.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:39.284)
But you can't silence me. Black women think and we write and we speak. And in 1954, I became editor of the Negro Affairs Quarterly. 1955, I was imprisoned in the Women's Penitentiary in Alderson, West Virginia.

They took me in on January 11th, 1955. You know who else was there? Many people have been there. There were many young Negro girls there.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:13.767)
That was also the place where they held Billie Holiday.

Adesoji Iginla (40:20.108)
Wow, I these now.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:22.393)
I was, yes, I was released on October 24th after numerous petitions for health reasons. But you know, even while I was imprisoned, I taught a young girl how to play piano. I took their weaving classes and their pottery classes. Art has always been important to me. And just like when I was in the sanitarium,

I made the most of those experiences. I spoke with the other women who were there. I collected their stories.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:04.283)
My sentence was commuted for good behavior and my father actually came to get me. And I traveled back with him from the prison to stay with him in his home. This was 1955. I was hospitalized at Mount Sinai Hospital following a heart attack.

identified as exacerbated by the conditions of my imprisonment.

How many?

imperialism, colonialism, racial discrimination, how many have been killed?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:56.722)
My deportation was ordered on December 5th.

and I left for London on the Queen Elizabeth on December 9th and arrived in London on December 22nd.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:13.403)
I'm going to pause for a few.

Adesoji Iginla (42:17.934)
Hmm.

And so when she got to London, she experienced a harsh reality of what the face of colonialism attempts to hide away from the world, which is when you come to London, you are going to not just be at the bottom of the barrel, but you're actually going to be underneath the barrel.

And so she was met with signs like no dogs, no Irish, no blacks allowed.

And she also faced the problem that the Communist Party over here were, in her words, afraid of the power of a Black woman.

And so she had to do what she is known for, which is organize around her interest and organize she did.

Adesoji Iginla (43:25.175)
So the question would be.

Adesoji Iginla (43:32.29)
What was the motivation thereafter coming from the United States thinking, well, I need, I mean, you said it, that I need to continue the work. What was it about London?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:50.622)
So much to cover and so little time. Well, as I said, my people came from Trinidad and Tobago. That's where I was born. But Trinidad and Tobago was still a colony of the British. And there was much agitation going on on the islands at that time. And...

the colonizers were very concerned about having someone of my stature and with my organizing experience on the island. And so they refused to allow me to entrance to my own homeland. And they figured that London would give them a opportunity to keep an eye on me and I would cause less trouble.

Adesoji Iginla (44:33.686)
Yeah, that was under the UV trouble song.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:48.827)
It's the thing they always do, which is to...

marginalize us, which is to discount us. I want to share a little bit about what I shared in court on the day that I was convicted. And I'm going to tell you I was sentenced and then I'm going to tell you a little bit about my trip to London and then what happened.

Again, I encourage you to go read this for yourself because I cannot share everything with you in this time, but just a little snippet of my statement before being sentenced to one year and a day by Judge Edward J. Democ. I say his name so if you ever see his grave site, you know what to do.

Adesoji Iginla (45:43.694)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:48.709)
Your Honor, there are a few things I wish to say.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:57.822)
For if what I say here serves even one wit to further dedicate growing millions of Americans to fight for peace and to repel the fascist drive on free speech and thought in our country, I shall consider my rising to speak worthwhile indeed.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:17.405)
Quite candidly, Your Honor, I say these things not with any idea that what I say will influence your sentence of me, for even with all the power Your Honor holds, how can you decide to met out justice for the only act to which I proudly plead guilty, and one more over which by your own prior rulings constitutes no crime? That of holding

communist ideas of being a member and officer of the Communist Party of the United States.

Will you measure, for example, as worthy of one year sentence, my passionate adherence to the idea of fighting for full unequivocal equality for my people, the Negro people, which as a communist, I believe can only be achieved allied to the cause of the working class?

Adesoji Iginla (47:09.112)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:11.527)
A year for another vital communist belief that the bestial Korean War is an unjust war? Or my belief that peaceful coexistence of nations can be achieved and peace won if struggled for?

Another year for my belief that only under socialism will exploitation of man by man be finally abolished and the great human and industrial resources of the nation be harnessed for the well-being of the people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:44.528)
Still another year's sentence for my belief that the denial of the exercise of free speech and thoughts to communists only proceeds as history confirms the denial of the exercise of these rights to all Americans, et cetera, et cetera, honorable judge.

Of course, your honor, your honor might choose still another path for sentence. You will no doubt choose as the basis for sentence the concocted lies which flowed so smoothly from the well-paid tongues of stool pigeons and informers who paraded before you here and gave so-called evidence which the courts.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:31.985)
has christened as amply justified. Amply justified? Indeed. This evidence?

There was no official stamp powerful enough, your honor, to dignify the obscenity of this trial of ideas. Hence, for me to accept the verdict of guilty would only mean that I considered myself less than worthy of the dignity of truth, which I cherish as a communist and as a human being and also unsuitable to the utter contempt with which I hold such sordid.

performances.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:18.205)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:22.847)
It was in an American junior high school where I first learned of the great traditions of popular liberty of American history, for which I then received the Theodore Roosevelt Award for good citizenship, that I have learned to interpret that history and to work to influence its change for the betterment of the people with the indispensable weapon of Marxist Leninist ideas. That is the real crime against me. Of all other charges,

I am innocent.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:01.943)
It was here on this soil and not as Mr. Lane would depict to this court as a young child of eight years of age-waving revolutionary slogans, the absurdity of it all, that I had early experiences which are shared by millions of native-born Negroes, the bitter indignity and humiliation of second-class citizenship, the special status which makes a mockery of our government's

claims of a free America in a free world for 15 million Negro Americans. It was out of my Jim Crow experiences as a young Negro woman, experiences likewise born of working class poverty that led me in my search of why these things had to be that led me to join the Young Communist League and to choose at the age of 18 the philosophy of my life.

the science of Marxism-Leninism, that philosophy that not only rejects racist ideas, but is the antithesis of them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:15.165)
cannot share everything with you, so I'm going to end with this. It was the great Frederick Douglass who had a price on his head who said, without struggle, there is no progress. And echoing his words was the answer of the great abolitionist poet, James Russell Lowell. The limits of tyranny is prescribed by the measure of our resistance to it.

If out of this struggle history assesses that I and my co-defendants have made some small contributions, I shall consider my role small indeed. The glorious exploits of anti-fascist heroes and heroines honored today in all lands for their contribution to social progress will, just like the role of our prosecutors, also be measured by the people of the United States in that coming day.

Adesoji Iginla (52:11.662)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:12.465)
concluded your honor.

Adesoji Iginla (52:16.512)
and conclude that she did because for

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:19.195)
And so I get on this Queen Elizabeth and you know you had to get dressed up every night to go down for dinner and lamb chops and chutney sauce and it was quite amazing. Did you know I write poetry? I wrote quite a few poems while I was on the Queen Elizabeth. Poems about the water and messages coming to me. Yes, I did. And before I left on this boat.

Adesoji Iginla (52:25.134)
Of course.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:47.827)
because back then we had to travel by boat. Over 350 of my friends and comrades actually saw me off. We had a party at the St. Therese Hotel in Harlem. You know, I've been so serious since we started. What you haven't seen is the joy that I typically have. I always entered a room with laughter. You know what the FBI had in their files? They actually said,

She is tall, 5'9", quite attractive, and she had these dimples. Yes, I do.

Adesoji Iginla (53:24.426)
dimples.

you have to give it to them though they have a good keen sense of observation for them to notice the difference.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:36.529)
Well, I was hardly a wallflower, but it was with great sorrow that I left New York City. It was truly the only home I could remember, really. It's where I had been for 32 years. And I was leaving everyone I knew and my aged father behind.

Adesoji Iginla (53:49.774)
32 years.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:02.023)
I was deported in 1955. I was hospitalized soon after I got to London in 1956. And shortly after that, my father made his transition. And I could neither go for his funeral or to assist in his burial.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:26.213)
I had no money and really nowhere to stay. I stayed with friends and it became a stay where I was as anxious to leave as they were for me to leave as well. That is never a place where a woman of my age wants to be.

I went to the Communist Party in Britain expecting to be embraced, particularly given my work as a member of the Communist Party and a leader of the Communist Party in the United States of America.

I was rejected by those old fuddy duddy white men. Not just those who were in the professional ranks, but even the working class. They wanted nothing to do with this Negro woman who came in there with ideas.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:29.991)
because a black woman should not be able to think or speak or write. But we had work to do. I embraced my people, the West Indians. And soon after that, we founded the West Indian Gazette. Is there anything that you would like to add before I continue with my story?

Adesoji Iginla (55:49.952)
Yes, actually the West Indian Gazette was not only a paper that's in the traditional sense but it was also an informational tool. It was an informational educational tool because what they did was they invited writings from the community. People who were not trained journalists that, okay bring your stories in, we'll help you brush it up and put it out there.

and that birth more and more journalists within the West Indian community. But I want to go to something.

She wrote a piece, an essay titled, An End to the Neglect.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:33.747)
She? Who is she?

Adesoji Iginla (56:37.286)
Claudia Vera Comberbatch Jones, because we have to call the full name. And she wrote a piece titled An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman. And in it she said, and you will see the correlation with history.

The bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro women and for good reason. The capitalists know far better than many progressives seem to know that once Negro women begin to take action, the militancy of the whole Negro people and toss of the anti-imperialist coalition is greatly enhanced. Historically, the Negro women had been the guardian, the protector of the Negro family. As mother,

as Negro, as worker, the Negro woman fights against the wiping out of the Negro family, against the Jim Crow ghetto existence, which destroys the health, morale, and the very lives of millions of our sisters, brothers, and children. Viewed in this light, it is not accidental that the American bourgeoisie has intensified its oppression, not only of the Negro people in general, but of Negro women in particular.

Nothing so exposes the drive to fascification in the nation as the callous attitudes with which the bourgeoisie is displayed and cultivated towards Negro women. And you saw this play out in the last election in the United States. So when she said, I wish to imagine the future, was this the future she was imagining?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:35.069)
come from a long line of women.

who know I roll as divine beings.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:51.031)
And beyond me, there will always be other women, African women, who also tap into that same understanding. So whether we talk about Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman or Queen Nani or Queen Aminah, Queen Njinga.

We have a long history. We can go back to the beginning of humanity and it starts with us. So do you ask is it the future that I envisioned?

The future I envisioned was one in which women could rightfully be who they were designed to be, where we were not exploited in the ways that we still are.

and

Though I am sad to see where we are, I am gratified that my daughters have kept that fight going. And it is a fight we will win. Of that I am certain.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:07.106)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:10.227)
So coming to London as a now middle-aged woman with a heart disease, a new place.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:27.921)
have now migrated, if you will, forcefully and not twice.

an even deeper understanding of how interconnected we all are.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:47.215)
And so with my work and as I advanced the ideas of Marxism and Leninism, my idea was to really help people understand how everything was connected. And with the situation, the experiences that people of West Indian descent were experiencing in Britain.

helping and many of them were shocked by the experience they had in Britain because growing up in the West Indies, they had been told they are subjects of the queen. They had been told this was their home country as absurd as it sounds now. They really believed that coming to Britain would be a great thing for them. Just as my family had believed we were going to the land of, of milk and honey, if you will, in the United States of America. And many of them were quite

frankly shocked by their experiences in Britain, but showing them the link between colonialism and imperialism and capitalism and how socialism would be the thing that frees us. And so when the racist communist party in Britain rejected me, I embraced my people and we went to work organizing.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:47.779)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:02:13.135)
Our goal was for the Gazette to become a weekly paper. We never quite got there, but it was a monthly paper. We struggled many times with getting it out, but the idea was to make sure that we were educating our people and we were connecting us all. And so we had stories about what was happening in the different islands of the Caribbean. And we had stories about what was happening.

locally and then we have stories of what was happening in the United States as a matter of fact you know when they had that March on Washington we marched as well in London I had over a thousand people who marched to the US Embassy in London showing the solidarity showing how we are connected showing how our fight is won because when they divide us they can conquer us

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:07.973)
I also met another man that I was to work with, although that relationship too was fraught with...

some issues.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:03:24.477)
But again, that is just part of my life and the choices that I made. So.

In London, I became affiliated with the Caribbean members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. I joined the West Indian Forum and Committee on Racism and International Affairs. I worked in various organizations in London, including the Caribbean Labor Congress. Do you know that the Communist Party in Britain did try to find me a job, but it was a menial job? Again, nothing that would use my great acumen.

There were days when I went hungry. I had friends, my friend, Ms. Johnson in the US was trying to gather funds and send me some funds. She reached out to another man that I considered a comrade, Ben Davis. If you read my papers, you would see that I wrote extensively about him and the way he was prosecuted, because he too was imprisoned for his ideas.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:36.871)
This work is not for the weak of heart.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:40.898)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:04:42.055)
There's a lot of heartbreak. There's a lot of sacrifice. I'm being very vulnerable with you all tonight.

When Darlene Johnson spoke to him and said we need to help Claudia, she is struggling financially, he said the party has exhausted most of its funds with all of these court cases and she just has to figure it out.

I would never have said this. I didn't write it anywhere, but I'm thinking it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:17.907)
how quickly we become dispensable.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:05:24.051)
In 1957, I co-founded the West Indian Workers and Students Association because we must work with the youth. We must work with the youth. We must get their attention and engage them while they're young.

I became active in a variety of ways against racism, immigration restrictions and the oppression of the Caribbean community in London and apathied South Africa, because we're all connected. This fight is won. I founded the West Indian Gazette. Later it became the West Indian Gazette and Afro Asian Caribbean News. I was the editor for the West Indian Gazette and the Afro Asian Caribbean News and active in political organizing of Pan-African.

Caribbean and third world communities in London. We needed to all come together in solidarity. At this time,

Britain still refused to allow me a passport. I could not travel.

In 1959, we organized the first London Caribbean Carnival at St. Pancras Hall. Perhaps you, as a black male, would like to share how that carnival came about, the incidents that occurred right before that carnival, and call his name.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:34.477)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:47.392)
Yeah, so the carnival itself was a combination of, I want to be careful how I say this, a 32 year old Antiguan capita was coming back from work around midnight on May 17, 1959.

a place in West London here, Naughty Hill to be exact, and it was accosted by white fascist youths and they proceeded to attack him and stab him and he was laid out, well he bled to, you know, he bled to death.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:07:41.075)
Cal Sockra.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:42.242)
Kelso Cochrane is his name. I was going to call his name, but Kelso Cochrane was his name. And the beautiful thing about Kelso Cochrane's passing was the day he was going to be buried, London stood still. In fact, the entire neighborhood came out to say their goodbyes to him.

The fall and the positive side of his passing was what will now be known as the largest street party in Europe, the Naughty Hill Carnival. So that carnival stemmed Miss Jones's efforts to bring people together and that is now a constant on the London calendar.

the last bank holiday of the year which is the last Monday in August, London, West London turns into one huge party. But you know that's a side but the downside of that again if we're peering into the future as she want us to do is that there was a movie that was done

Couple of years ago, movie was titled Naughty Hill as well, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. When we talk about Erasure, that film was set in a black neighborhood. Imagine a film being set in Harlem, in Atlanta, in Dallas, and you do not see a black person on screen, not even an extra.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:34.466)
That is the kind of erasure.

that we should not allow stand and I think we will do her memory justice by continuing to scream out that fact we would not be erased.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:09:56.692)
Clearly I agree with you because many of you are just hearing about me for the first time.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:08.413)
here in the United States of America.

Very few wrote about me.

despite my work.

I it could be considered another kind of othering. I have always been clear.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:24.801)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:30.557)
that the same issues we're dealing with at the local level, we see at the national level, we see at the international level, they're all connected.

And the only way we win is solidarity across these arbitrarily drawn geographical borders.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10:57.489)
We must address issues of class. We must address issues of gender. We must address issues of race across the globe. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:13.361)
I never had children of my own. But when that young man was killed...

and with marauding gangs of white men going all through the few neighborhoods where we had been pushed into, the fear that gripped the West Indian community and even for every other black person.

People were afraid to step out. And the police did nothing to protect us. And finally, ha ha, the Jamaicans.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:54.231)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:11:55.24)
They took up arms and they said, we are going to give as good as we get and we are going to protect our own.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:04.514)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:07.407)
and many were imprisoned, but it changed things. But I, I understanding the importance of joy and understanding that art is the genesis of a people's freedom.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:28.979)
I said, let's come together and celebrate our culture and celebrate who we are and get beyond all of these racist ideas that perf about black men and how they were violent and how they were going to attack white women. That same tired story.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:12:57.637)
and many were in opposition to that idea. Carnival? How trivial is that? it gets worse because as part of the carnival, we were going to have a beauty contest.

We are communists. We deal with ideas. We should not be engaging in things like that. But my people, a people's art is the genesis of their freedom.

We need spaces of joy. We need spaces where we can remember and celebrate who we are and call up those things that have been so suppressed. Because let me tell you about the life of a Negro in America at that time. Let me tell you about the life of a black person of any one of African descent in Britain at that time. We had no leisure. It was the black tax. We paid four times.

The rent that a white person would pay because we couldn't even find places to live and they could just gouge us. And so all we did was work. You know, you know that stereotype you guys use nowadays. Jamaicans work 10 jobs. Where do you think that comes from? We were just trying to live and I saw my people in pain. I saw mothers scared.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:02.369)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:24.371)
scared to let their children out of their sight for fear that that would be the last time that they will see their children. We had to turn it around. And that's when I suggested the carnival and no, did not do it alone because I never work alone. We always organize. We always bring people together and we came together and we created that first indoor carnival and that carnival took place every year until the year that I died. 1965 that

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:51.436)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:14:55.217)
I was buried in January and that carnival was supposed to be in February. It was temporarily canceled, but thank you. They still held carnival, but it was in August of 1965. But let me wrap up really quickly here because you can read about me. You know why? Cause finally I'm not erased anymore. I want to say a big thank you to Carol Boyce Davies. I want to thank.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:18.158)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:15:25.073)
My friend Donald, there are people who have started to write about me, essays that have been put together by people like Gerald Horne.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:35.072)
yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:15:37.672)
And I don't say this because I think myself so lofty. I say it because I learned from the people who came before me and you too should study and learn from what I did so that we're always starting again from the beginning. We can build on what has been. In 1961, we had the Afro Asian Caribbean Conference organized in part by the West Indian Gazette.

which led to the formation of the committee of Afro Asian and Caribbean organizations. In 1962, I finally get a passport and I visit the Soviet Union as a guest of editors of Soviet women. You cannot imagine my delight until you read the poem I wrote about this because here, here, here was the heart of communism. I got to visit schools and study developments in healthcare, but.

I also ended up being hospitalized.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:16:38.867)
I returned to London on November 21st, 1962. But I wasn't done. In 1963,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:16:50.427)
I also got to travel. met a lot of women, including, this was at the women's Congress, including Fumi Lyo.

Ransom Kuti and many others. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:17:09.404)
In 19-

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:17:18.139)
I pause. There's so much that I'm remembering at this time. In 1963, again, I visited Soviet Union, this time as a representative of Trinidad and Tobago, to attend the World Congress of Women. I organized with the Committee of Afro-Asian and Caribbean Organizations, and we had the Parallel March on Washington to the US Embassy, as I told you. In 1964, I worked for the African National Congress.

to organize hunger strikes against apartheid, to boycott South Africa and for the freedom of political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela. I participated in protest outside of the South African embassy in London, all the while with my heart. My heart's weakening. I spoke at a rally with novelist George Lammon and others on April 12th. I met with Martin Luther King in London on his way to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize.

I also met with Kwame Nkrumah and with Joe Mkenyatta.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:18:24.219)
I wrote my last editorial in the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News about King's visit. I gave a speech in Japan as a delegate to the 10th World Conference against hydrogen and atom bombs. I served as vice chair of the conference drafting committee, proposing resolutions in support of liberation struggles in the so-called third world. I traveled to China.

as a guest of China Peace Committee, and I met Chairman Mao.

I also got to interview Sun Qing Ling, the wife of Sun Yat-sen.

This was all very taxing on my body.

I returned to London.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:19.451)
And on the eve of December 25th.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:26.703)
I died, they say, of heart failure.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:32.165)
I was in my bed with my reading glasses on and my reading material.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:36.514)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:19:41.829)
My partner at the time was out of the country, Abihimanyu Manchanda, known as Manu.

But the fact that you are even exploring me today is in no small part due to him as well. Because he kept my papers, he married, he named his daughter after me, and his wife, Diana Langford, kept my papers, found my papers, and kept them after he died.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:04.066)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:20:21.179)
and it was due to her efforts that Carol Boise Davis was eventually able to get access to my papers and now my papers are at the Schomburg in New York City back in the city where I was raised and where I spent most of my life.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:27.128)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:46.37)
Yeah, but four people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:20:46.769)
Much has happened since then. I'm just going to end with this. As a matter of fact, just in December 2023, the Nubian Jack Community Trust put a blue plaque outside of the house where I used to live. It's 58 Lisburn Road in North London in the borough of Camden.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:12.856)
Yeah, put the bell down. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:21:15.119)
There have been many other honors, if you will. Like I said, my paper's at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. They held a symposium on me in 1999.

Carol Boyce Davis published a book called Left of Karl Marx. Kind of have dueling thoughts about the title of the book. Well, because I was a communist and I absolutely, my entire life believed in the Marxist-Leninist theory.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:38.06)
left of Karl Marx. Why?

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:43.604)
Why that title though?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22:00.52)
I would say though, and as you read my work, that I went beyond Marxism and Leninism as they had it. I believe that I had a more encompassing view of what it would require for us to truly have socialism. I died at age 49 and I would like to believe that had I lived longer,

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:09.633)
and

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22:28.891)
My ideas would have continued to evolve. And I, like some other...

people of African descent who were once communists but then disavowed communism may eventually have come to that point. Although many of the people writing about me right now will disagree with that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:53.614)
true.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22:54.275)
So, left of Karl Marx is because I am actually buried at Highgate.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:00.79)
Yeah, just about, just about six miles away from me, literally around the corner.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:07.673)
I am buried to the left of the 11 foot bust of Karl Marx.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:09.364)
Mhm. Of course.

Yeah, you can't miss it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:17.969)
I finally have a little headstone.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:27.163)
I guess it could be an honor to be in that position.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:34.661)
And yet there's a part of me that believes that.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:42.151)
while I claimed communism till my death.

as you read and analyze my work.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:23:58.822)
I should not be in the shadow of Karl Marx in life or in death. There's also another book that is out. There are so many actually that are coming out now. And this one is called Internationalism in Practice, Claudia Jones Black Liberation and the Bistro War on Korea. And there are quite a few people who contributed to this, including, of course, I mentioned Gerald Horn earlier.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:03.086)
True, true.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:10.794)
Internationalism. Practice.

Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:23.618)
Gerald Horne.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:24:26.151)
And there are other little books that have information about me. This one is The Heart of the Race, Black Women's Lives in Britain. And this one was written by Beverly Bryan, Stella D'Azzie, and Susan Scaff, forward by Lola Okolosie. And yes, there's plenty.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:34.018)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:45.922)
There's a yeah, I mean, there are multiple books on her, you know, but those two Internationalism in Practice, Claudia Jones Beyond Containment, those two are, you know, the first go to because this is essentially all our writings. This is written about her. So

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:25:07.955)
So I do wanna share just a few last words, unless you have other questions for me. At my, did you know this? So I was supposed to go to a party on Christmas Eve. And the reason they came and found out that I had transitioned was because I didn't show up for the party, because I was the life of the party.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:14.094)
I knew.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:33.642)
yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:25:37.815)
Now, there was actually a struggle over my body. So a certain group of people that were affiliated with Mao decided that my body belonged to them. This is what happens when you are...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:26:00.212)
Cut off, cut off from your family. Alone in a whole strange place. And I did my best and I worked to create family. In fact, one of the criticisms about our newspaper was that...

We weren't professional enough because it became a place where people just stopped in and they shared their stories. I was like a godmother to so many people. And they felt, some of the workers felt it wasn't professional enough. But you have to create spaces for people to be human.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:31.34)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:26:33.839)
And so they first were going to take my body and Manu had to go to court to get an injunction.

to have access to my body. And then of course he orchestrated my funeral and I was buried on January 9th, 1965. And it was quite, it was a very cold day, but over 400 people showed up and there were messages from all embassies from all across the world.

home, they sent their dignitaries. I think my parents would have been proud to see this young girl who contracted tuberculosis because she lived in such squalor, fed it at this level. Of course, there's a part of me that wishes they had made my living a little easier than just celebrating my accomplishments after my death.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27:14.798)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27:21.432)
their little daughter.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:27:42.92)
But how do you move on, my daughters in particular and my sons as well, only through organization, education and struggle against reaction, against war, profits, fighting back against anyone who would try to push back on our civil liberties, fighting back against all the times that they try to.

limit us under the guise of war emergencies. That's always when they come up with more of these punitive things. Did you know that in the United States of America, anyone who wants to become a naturalized citizen has to take an oath that they have never been a member of a communist party, even that you don't even know anyone who's a member of the communist party. Isn't that crazy? That is how they essentially attempted to kill

Adesoji Iginla (01:28:23.438)
to yeah never been of the conference party yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:28:36.603)
the Communist Party in the United States of America.

And since then you all have had your...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:28:48.203)
You keep coming up with the war on drugs, the war on poverty. Then you had post 9-11 and all of that. And each time you have these things, you erode the rights of people. You must fight back against this through organization, through education, and through struggle. My life was a life of struggle. Too many sacrifices, maybe not too many, but a lot of sacrifices. But I think so many of you are so wedded to your comfort.

Adesoji Iginla (01:29:07.95)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:29:17.971)
Too comfortable to study, too comfortable to organize, too comfortable to struggle.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:29:28.451)
Only the abolition of imperialism of the whole system of the war makers will guarantee peace for you and for any peoples in the world and women in particular whose children have to go off to war and be killed. We must be at the forefront of this fight. How do we do this? Fight the war every inch of the way. Don't give up an inch. Don't let them take any ground fight.

Fight, fight. We believe that our ideals can best be achieved by socialism, by establishing a new social order in which the working people will own and control all the vast resources and means of production and use them for the benefit of all the people. You gotta fight. You gotta study. You gotta organize. You gotta fight.

Adesoji Iginla (01:30:11.982)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:30:24.248)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. And again, before we go, and I should bring up the name of Claudia Veria Cumberbatch Jones, who would hand over the baton to next week.

the mother of Africa, Maria Macabre. So next week, it's going to be a turn of Maria Macabre in the chair. Again, I must thank Sister Aya for bringing her bricks, her hair.

Adesoji Iginla (01:31:10.514)
and multiple... multiple personas. Hopefully she doesn't have to get into the chair and go and see. But... let's say 90s...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:31:23.507)
see a shrink. Hey, I might already be seeing one. No, but seriously, though, I just told you thank you so much for this opportunity. Again, for those who are just catching this, this all of these are based on a book that I started writing before the pandemic.

And then my brother died and that threw me for a loop and then other things. And I just said, she was like, let's do this. Let's tell these stories. And I never intended that I would be doing hair or anything, but literally these women are just like taking over. I refuse to try and do their accents. Some of them have been trying to get me to go practice. I'm like, no, this is it. I'm not at first. Why I even have time, but,

We appreciate everyone who's watching. do ask you to like, to share, leave comments. We do believe that these women's voices need to be heard, their stories need to be known, and that they're very instructive for the times that we live in. So if you're enjoying this, hopefully you're also learning from it. Hopefully you're also being inspired by it. Please like, share, subscribe, download the podcast, all of those things.

Adesoji Iginla (01:32:41.078)
Yeah, you heard it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:32:45.695)
And yes, next week, Mama Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (01:32:47.79)
Mama Africa, Maria Makeva. And she also has great stories. So all these women, they're exceptional and they embody.

the theme of this podcast, is them being women and offering their resistance in their only two ways.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:33:10.065)
resistance.

and all of them harassed so far, all of them harassed by their authorities, many of them dying young, and many of them dealing with the shenanigans of black men who don't know how to support black strong women. Y'all need to get it together.

Adesoji Iginla (01:33:17.646)
by the authorities. mean, that's a given.

Adesoji Iginla (01:33:28.961)
Yeah, yeah.

Alright, alright, alright. Okay. On the very happy note. Until next time when we talk Maria Makeba and the style.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:33:52.263)
Thank you again. Thanks everyone for watching and for listening.

Adesoji Iginla (01:33:55.419)
And it's good night from me. Good night and see you next week.