On 30 January 1959, in the middle of a cold British winter, hundreds of people gathered inside St Pancras Town Hall in London for a Caribbean Carnival. There were dancers, singers, a beauty contest and music from the Caribbean, and the BBC filmed it. It was organised by a woman who had been forced out of the United States only a few years before. Her name was Claudia Jones.
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Unlock This CourseClaudia Jones was born in 1915 in Trinidad, in the Caribbean, and moved with her family to New York as a child. She became a journalist and a campaigner for equal rights for Black people and for women. Because of her political activities, the US government deported her in 1955. She came to London, where she soon saw that Black people from the Caribbean faced prejudice in housing, jobs and daily life.
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Jones started the Gazette in 1958 and ran it from Brixton. It reported news that most British papers ignored, from events in the Caribbean and Africa to the struggles of people living in Britain. It campaigned against racism and for the rights of Black and Asian people, and it gave readers a voice of their own.
Jones believed that people would find it harder to be prejudiced against a community whose music, dance and art they knew and enjoyed. She also wanted Caribbean people in Britain to feel proud of where they came from.
The Gazette was started in March 1958. That summer there were riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill, when white crowds attacked Black residents, and the mood in the Caribbean community was one of fear and anger.
Jones wanted to answer hatred with something positive. Months after the riots she helped to organise a Caribbean Carnival, held indoors at St Pancras Town Hall in January 1959. It was based on the carnival traditions of Trinidad, her birthplace. It was held indoors because it was winter and a street carnival was not yet possible. It was shown on television, so people across Britain could see it.
A few months after the Carnival, in May 1959, a Black carpenter from Antigua called Kelso Cochrane was murdered in Notting Hill, and Jones took part in the campaign for justice for him. Similar indoor carnivals were held in later years, until 1964. Jones died on 24 December 1964, aged only 49.
The Gazette gave Black and Asian Britons a newspaper that took their problems seriously. The Carnival gave Caribbean families a chance to celebrate together at a time when many faced hostility, and it helped them to feel proud, united and visible.
The Carnival showed many white Britons Caribbean music, costume and dance. In the mid-1960s a street festival began in Notting Hill. It grew into the Notting Hill Carnival, held every August bank holiday weekend and now one of the largest street festivals in Europe. Claudia Jones is often called its "mother".
Change and continuity: the Carnival did not end prejudice. Housing and job discrimination carried on, and laws to protect Black Britons came later. But it was a lasting change in culture. Before the 1950s Caribbean culture was rarely seen in British public life, whereas today Caribbean music, food and carnival are part of everyday British life. The story of how the government tried to limit immigration continues in the lesson on the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962.
This is a Paper 2, Section B type (b) question. For each cause, give precise facts and then explain how it led to the outcome.
Explain two causes of the first Caribbean Carnival being held in London in 1959. [8 marks]
One cause was the racial tension of 1958. White crowds had attacked Black residents in Nottingham and Notting Hill that summer, and the Caribbean community felt fearful and unwelcome. Claudia Jones wanted a positive answer to the hatred, so she organised a celebration of Caribbean culture that would bring people together and show that the community was proud and visible. The riots therefore gave her a reason to hold the event.
A second cause was Claudia Jones's own leadership. She was a journalist who had been deported from the United States in 1955 and who had founded the West Indian Gazette in 1958, so she had the skills and the contacts to organise a large public event and to publicise it. She drew on the carnival traditions of her birthplace, Trinidad, and held the event at St Pancras Town Hall. Without her determination and her newspaper, the Carnival might not have happened.
What lifts it to the top level: two separate causes, each with precise facts, and a clear explanation of how each one led to the Carnival.
Start each paragraph by naming the cause, then add dates or names, then finish with a line that begins "This led to the Carnival because...". That last line is what shows you are explaining, not just describing.