Claudia was a Trinidadian political activist, whose grave can be found next to that of Karl Marx in London.

The embryonic version of the Notting Hill Carnival began ino Judd Street’s Camden’s town hall by Trinidadian Claudia Jones a political activist who spent her life fighting against injustice against black people and women. 

Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad in 1915 and was thrown out of the US for her political activities in the McCarthy period. A communist, nonetheless she had a critical view of what she perceived as a gender-blind and colour-blind approach to women’s and negro oppression (she always used the term “negro” as it was in common parlance at the time).

Settled in London and aware of poor conditions for Black communities encouraged to migrate here to fill labour shortages after the war, facing overt racism, she determined to establish a carnival to celebrate Caribbean culture, in the Mardi Gras style familiar to her from her home town of Port of Spain. 

The first one was held in January 1959 inside St Pancras Town Hall, televised by the BBC. There is, since 2023, a room inside of the town hall on Judd Street named Claudia Jones room.

She died at 45 and was honoured with a grave next to that of Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery, north of here. Arguably, her greater legacy might be the thriving Notting Hill Carnival today.