Claudia Jones, the Windrush Generation, and the 1959 Notting Hill Carnival

The Windrush Generation and Foundations of Racial Hostility

• Arrival of the Empire Windrush: On $June\,22,\,1948$, the namesake ship arrived at Tilbury Docks in Essex, carrying over $800$ British Caribbean citizens (West Indians) primarily from Jamaica ($539$ people), Bermuda, British Guiana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago.

• Legal Standing: The British Nationality Act of $1948$ granted residents of British Caribbean colonies the right to live and work in England to assist in post-World War II reconstruction.

• Early Media and Institutional Reaction:     * British Path News depicted the arrival as citizens of the empire coming with "good intent."     * The Daily Mirror ($June\,23,\,1948$) utilized mocking derision, reporting on immigrants wearing high-cost "zoot-style" suits valued between $\text{\pounds}15$ and $\text{\pounds}20$.     * Within $2\,days$ of the arrival, $11$ members of the British parliament petitioned Prime Minister Clement Attlee to halt West Indian migration.

• The Notting Hill Race Riots of $1958$: A sustained series of racial attacks by white mobs occurred from $August\,29$ to $September\,5,\,1958$.     * Locations: Notting Hill, Notting Dale, Ladbrook Grove, and Nottingham.     * Perpetrators: White youth gangs known as "Teddy boys" (successors to the $1930s$ "biff boys") and organizations like Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement (UM) and Colin Jordan’s White Defense League (WDL) under the banner "Keep Britain White."     * Sparking Incident: On $August\,30,\,1958$, an argument between Majbritt Morrison (a white Swedish woman) and her Black Jamaican husband Raymond Morrison outside Latimer Road tube station led to a mob of about $400$ white men attacking West Indian homes and a sound system organized by Count Suckle.

Claudia Jones: Activism, Diaspora, and Displacement

• Biography and Early Life: Born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in $1915$. She migrated to Harlem, New York at age $8$.

• Health and Adversity: Her mother died of spinal meningitis while working as a machinist. Jones contracted tuberculosis at $17$ and suffered from poverty throughout her life.

• Political Career in the U.S.:     * Defended the Scottsboro boys ($1931-1932$).     * Joined the Communist Party USA in $1936$, serving as the national secretary of the Women’s Commission.     * Targeted during the second "Red Scare" ($1947-1957$) by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

• Incarceration and Deportation: Imprisoned under the McCarran Internal Security Act as a threat to the U.S. After a sentence of "a year and a day," she was deported and arrived in London in $December\,1955$.

• UK Activism: Founded the West Indian Gazette (WIG), later renamed the Afro-Asian Caribbean News, which was the first Black newspaper in England.

• Legacy: Jones died on Christmas Eve, $1964$. She is described as a "live wire" by Corinne Skinner-Carter and an "ultimate jouvayist" by Attillah Springer.

The Genesis of Notting Hill Carnival in $1959$

• Inaugural Event: Organized by Jones on $January\,30,\,1959$, at St. Pancras Town Hall.

• Strategic Purpose: It was a response to the racial trauma of the previous year’s riots. Jones famously stated, "We need something to get the taste of [the] Notting Hill [race riots] out of our mouths."

• Cultural Features: The indoor event included costume parades, steel bands, calypso, a Caribbean Carnival Queen beauty pageant, and traditional dishes (souse, rice and peas). It was televised by the BBC.

• The Pamphlet Mandate: Jones wrote, – "a people’s art is the genesis of their freedom."

• Evolution of the Format:     * $1960-1964$: Organized by Edric and Pearl Connor at Seymour Hall and the Lyceum.     * $1965$: Carnival paused to honor the death of Claudia Jones.     * $1966$: Rhaune Laslett moved the event outdoors as the "Notting Hill Fayre" during the August bank holiday. Russell Henderson led the first street parade with a steel pan band.     * $1973$: Leslie Palmer introduced Jamaican sound systems on flatbed trucks.

Theoretical Frameworks of Masquerade and Performance

• Human Happiness as Imperative: Based on Carole Boyce Davies’ analysis, Jones used "human happiness" as a mandate for collective joy and liberation to disarm racism.

• Sylvia Wynter’s Critique: Contrast between "Man" (white, male, Western construct) and the "Human Being" (categorized by race and power differentials).     * Wynter’s Statistics: $20\,\text{percent}$ of the world’s people own $80\,\text{percent}$ of its resources, consume $2/3$ of its food, and are responsible for $75\,\text{percent}$ of ongoing pollution.     * $2\,billion$ live in affluence while $4\,billion$ live on the edge of hunger.

• Mas’ as Theory: A Caribbean performance theory derived from West African masquerade traditions. It emphasizes the return of ancestral spirits.

• Historical Presence: A performance methodology where artists use the present tense to describe or interpret historical events experienced by ancestors, such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

• Critique of European Theory: Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival as a "suspension of hierarchies" is dismissed as inapplicable to Caribbean contexts because racial hierarchies remained fixed in the colonial West Indies.

• McKenzie’s Cultural Performance: Defined as "embodied transgressions" and "resistance" by social bodies.

Roots in Trinidadian Emancipation Festivals

• Emancipation Act of $1834$: Initiated a five-year apprenticeship supposed to end in $1839$; however, unrest led to full emancipation on $August\,1,\,1838$.

• Canboulay (Cannes Br™l‰es): Meaning "burnt cane," it commemorated the final burning of sugar cane at the end of enslavement. It is traditionally performed at midnight on Dimanche Gras (Fat Sunday).

• Jouvay (J’overt): Derived from the French "jour ouvert" (daybreak). Commemorates the first light of dawn on the first day of freedom. Revelers besmear themselves in mud, oil, or paint.

• Colonial Realignment: In the $1840s$, the British administration relocated these emancipation festivals to the pre-Lenten season to merge them with European colonial carnival festivities.

The Global Trinidad Carnival Diaspora

• The Big Three: Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and Trinidad. Only Trinidad Carnival has established a global diaspora (Milla Cozart Riggio).

• Global Presence:     * United Kingdom: $30$ Trinidad-style carnivals including Leeds, Manchester, and Nottingham.     * United States: Established in the $1920s$ in Harlem (led by Jessie Waddle). Currently at least $20$ variations, including Brooklyn’s West Indian Day Parade.     * Canada: Toronto Caribbean Day (Caribana), Calgary, and Vancouver.     * Europe: Nice, Nyon, Rotterdam, and Stockholm.

Post-Carnival Conflicts and The Windrush Scandal

• Continued Violence: Murder of Antiguan student Kelso Cochrane in $May\,1959$.

• Police Suppression: The event was heavily policed in the $1960s$ and $1970s$. Clashes occurred in $August\,1976$ and $August\,1988$.

• The $2018$ Windrush Scandal: Under the policies of Prime Minister Theresa May, the UK Home Office wrongly detained and deported members of the Windrush generation, leading to lost wages, revoked citizenship, and historical erasures.

• Conclusion: Jones’s "human happiness" imperative remains a tool for seeking restitution and modern Black British identity building.