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by Silver Press
The riots, perpetrated by whites on Blacks, which erupted during the summer of 1958, were most concentrated in the city of Nottingham, and the Notting Hill area of the west London borough of Kensington. The causes of the riots have been much discussed, but no firm conclusions have yet been reached. However, it is likely that racist organisations active in the area, such as Oswald Mosley’s White Defence League, the National Labour Party, the League of Empire Loyalists, the Union Movement and the British branch of the Ku Klux Klan played an active role in fomenting racial antipathy and in scapegoating the Black population for Britain’s social ills. One example of the leaflets being distributed in those years urged whites to: ‘Take action now. Protect your jobs. Stop coloured immigration. Houses for white people not coloured immigrants. A square deal for the negro in his own country. People of Kensington act now. Your country is worth fighting for. Fight with the Union Movement.’1
There is no record of Claudia undertaking any independent political activities before the riots. It is therefore possible that it was what she considered an inadequate response by her alma mater, the Communist Party, which led her to participate and organise outside of it.2 However, one must remember that even for Claudia there were only twenty-four hours in the day and keeping the Gazette going must have taken up many of those hours. How much time she could devote to any of the organisations is problematic, but as Notting Hill activist George Clarke told me, ‘her advice and comment were as important as her actual activities’.3
Of the many organisations which sprang up in Notting Hill, there were two which were to last for some time. Claudia was associated with both, but what role she played in their formation is not clear. Probably the first was the Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (AACP), clearly modelled by its founder, Amy Ashwood Garvey, on her US experience with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The local paper, the political activist 99 Kensington News (26/9/1958, p7) described Amy as ‘plump, jolly ... Recently returned from Ghana and her dress and furniture are from there ... Founder of the Afro-Centre, where she plans to establish a vocational school’. While the exact founding date is unknown, the AACP was certainly in existence by September 1958, when Dr Carl La Corbiniere, the deputy Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation, toured the riot-torn parts of Notting Hill. A meeting for him to discuss the situation with fellow West Indians was held at Mrs Garvey’s home at 1 Bassett Road.4 Claudia, clearly a friend and colleague of Amy’s, whom she well might have met in the USA, was the general secretary of the Association.5 According to the Metropolitan police reports, the AACP was ‘controlled by the Communist Party and fellow travellers ... the leading personality of the AACP and the United Defence Committee against Racial Discrimination is Claudia Jones, a West Indian communist’. The AACP was still in existence in 1959 as Pansy Jeffrey, the local borough council’s special social worker attached to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, reported on contacts with it that year.6
Amy Ashwood Garvey could not by any stretch of the imagination be counted either as a communist or even as a serious fellow traveller. Though of the other officers, Claudia and Manchanda were communists, neither David Pitt (who was soon to become a Labour borough councillor) nor Fenner Brockway, a Labour MP, had any connections with the Communist Party. Thus, the Metropolitan Police’s report is far from accurate. It is interesting to note that the police knew exactly who Claudia was and described her as ‘West Indian’. The United Defence Committee was probably the sub-committee set up by the IRFCC at its inaugural meeting (see below).
The other organisation that managed to outlast the immediate months of rioting was the Coloured People’s Progressive Association (CPPA). It was founded by Frances Ezzrecco, a Black woman from London’s East End, who was married to jazz drummer Don Ezzrecco. According to her own testimony, as she was coming home from work one evening during the disturbances, a gang of white youths chased her. ‘When I got home I said to my husband: “That is it! I have had enough! We must organise our people against these attacks”... a group of us got together and the Coloured People’s Progressive Association was formed. It was opened to white people as well as coloured ...’7 Whether Claudia was one of the founding group, Frances does not state. The Association co-operated with other groups and was very active locally. For example, in March 1959 it co-sponsored a public meeting, ‘How Can Coloured Workers Unite to Fight Unemployment’; in July it sent a deputation to see the Kensington mayor regarding ‘housing, slum clearance, police, play space and other social needs’ and in September it sent a delegation to join the Movement for Colonial Freedom’s Mass Demonstration of Inter-Racial Friendship.8 The CPPA survived at least until 1961, when the Kensington News reported that it was involved in mediating between landlords and tenants.9
Our people had been living in England peacefully for years; now that peace was shattered when homes were stoned, windows broken and families threatened. The Black community panicked and wanted to return home where they would be safe, and leave England before things got worse. Claudia found a situation in which she was needed and was most effective. She was a catalyst; she brought people together and could inspire, inform and mobilise them. She was able to analyse situations, and through her experience and organising skills was able to advise us on how to respond to the British Government. She came up with positive suggestions to calm fears ... (Pearl Connor at the 1996 Symposium.)
At about 1am on the morning of 17 May Kelso Cochrane, an Antiguan carpenter, was murdered by six (still) unknown white assailants on a Notting Hill street. At a meeting convened by the Committee of African Organisations in response to the unprovoked murder, a new organisation, the Inter-Racial Friendship Co-ordinating Council (IRFCC) was formed.10 At the meeting it was decided to send an open letter to the Prime Minster, stating that ‘coloured citizens of the UK have lost confidence in the ability of the law enforcing agencies to protect them’. The meeting demanded that the Government should close ‘racial centres’ and pass a law making incitement to racial violence illegal. It was decided to seek a meeting with the Home Secretary to discuss the situation and the group’s demands. The Government’s response was worse than negative: the White Defence League was given permission to hold a rally in Trafalgar Square and a month later it refused to ratify the International Labour Office’s Convention on Racial Discrimination.11
The Central Executive Committee of the IRFCC was elected in July: the chair was Amy Ashwood Garvey; Claudia Jones and Eleanor Ettlinger acted as co-vice-chairs; J. Eber, A. Manchanda and Aloa Bashorun shared secretarial duties; Pearl Connor was the treasurer; and Frances Ezzrecco was a member of the committee.12 Though the IRFCC’s official address was 374 Gray’s Inn Road, which was also the address of the Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF), it also met at Amy Ashwood Garvey’s house and at 200 Gower Street – the surgery of Dr David Pitt – which was a popular informal meeting place.13
The aims of the Council included ‘respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for ALL without distinctions as to race, colour, sex, language or religion; to oppose all forms of discrimination; to co-operate with other organisations to achieve [these] aims’.14 The police report adds ‘to educate the public on racial discrimination’ to the IRFCC aims.15 West Indian ‘establishment’ figures quickly decided to ‘dissociate’ themselves from the Council. At a meeting with the Home Office and the Colonial Office, West Indies Federation Deputy Prime Minister Dr Carl La Corbiniere and West Indian Commissioner Garnet Gordon stated that they saw the Council as an ‘African-dominated organisation with strong political affiliations ... The activities of political groups are laying the foundations of future trouble ... It is essential to time this action [of dissociation] carefully if the council was to be discredited’.16 Among those listed as signing the few remaining IRFCC attendance lists in existence are Ranjana Ash, Eleanor Ettlinger, John Eber, and McDonald Moses, the public relations officer of the CPPA.17 The statement of accounts up to June 1959 shows how wide was the membership of the Council. Member organisations, or those which had paid their dues, were the MCF, the CPPA, the Committee of African Organisations, West Indians Students & Workers, the AACP, the Hornsey & Islington Inter-Racial Group, the St John Society and the West Indian Federal Labour Party. Among the contributors were D.N. Pritt, Ivor Montagu, the Communist Party, the Nyasaland African Congress, the South African Freedom Association and the West Indian United Association.
Without full documentation there are only glimpses of the IRFCC’s activities. Following the open letter to the Prime Minister outlined above, on 27 May 1959 a deputation which included Claudia spent one and a half hours discussing their concerns with three Home Office officials. The delegation restated their demands: speedy action against racist propaganda; the trebling of the police force in the Notting Hill area; and, if necessary, new legislation to prevent incitement to race-hatred. The demands were necessitated by ‘inactivity by the authorities in the face of organised attempts to stir up racial hatred by fascist groups’. The establishment of its own defence organisation was to be considered if the Home Office failed to act. The deputation also proposed the appointment of a Select Committee ‘with both white and coloured members, to go into the whole question of the special problems of districts such as Notting Hill where there are large numbers of coloured residents’. According to other reports the deputation also asked for the removal of policemen ‘with known racial bias’, and that the proposed legislation should deem racial discrimination illegal. The senior Home Office official who received the delegates assured them that the ‘government was satisfied that the police were taking necessary action ... It was unlikely that West Indians would be allowed to form their own defence organisations.’18
However, R.A. Butler, the Home Secretary, only promised to ‘watch the situation and encourage “effective integration and consider recruiting coloured policemen ... and slum clearance”’.19 When pressed in Parliament, Butler condemned the fomentation of racial discrimination, but denied the need for a special enquiry.
Every effort will be made to encourage effective integration … The police discharge their duties impartially … Any activities being undertaken calculated to lead to a breach of the peace the police have the powers to deal with ... To take action against [racial discrimination] might not be effective. That is why I do not want to step into that without a great deal more consideration.
Butler’s contacts with the media ‘indicate that it [the Press] is willing to take a responsible view of this matter’. After meeting with police chiefs he announced that he was satisfied with their ‘handling of the situation in Notting Hill and elsewhere’. The ‘root of racial tension’, according to the police chiefs, lay in ‘restlessness among young people and social malaise’.20
Within a few days of Cochrane’s murder the Council sponsored a memorial meeting for him at St Pancras Town Hall. The three major political parties and forty organisations were represented. The speakers included Dr David Pitt, Dr La Corbiniere and Eslanda Goode Robeson.21 The Council even arranged for a portrait to be painted especially for the meeting. The un-named CPPA spokesperson described the growing racial tension in the area, the ‘alarm felt by the coloured people’ and the ‘allegations of hostility by the police’.22
A few days later, on 1 June, there was an IRFCC/CPPA-sponsored vigil outside 10 Downing Street to ‘express a lack of confidence in arrangements for the security of coloured people’. Those participating in the vigil were given placards. Two of these read ‘There is only one race, the human race’ and ‘Racial discrimination is illegal’; a third bore the portrait of the murdered Kelso Cochrane. Frances Ezzrecco, participating in the vigil, is reported as saying ‘We want to know who will stop talking and do something’.23”
Endnotes