Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Help to mark the birthday of legendary communist and civil rights activist Claudia Jones this weekend
ANGELA COBBINAH invites readers to join a graveside gathering to remember a heroic fighter against imperialism and racism
Winston Pinder at Claudia Jones's grave
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
IT ONCE was a forlorn mound of earth that lay next to Karl Marx’s tomb in London’s Highgate Cemetery, unmarked and unadorned.
Few people were aware that it contained the ashes of communist civil rights leader Claudia Jones who died prematurely in 1964 at the age of 49.
It was only as a result of the efforts of a group of community activists that a gravestone was finally erected 20 years later following a fundraising campaign.
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A lifelong communist and community organiser, Pinder helped shape anti-racist and anti-colonial activism in Britain while dedicating himself to youth work and collective struggle, writes David Horsley
On the 121st anniversary of communist Claudia Jones’s birth ROGER McKENZIE looks at political events that shaped her, and those she helped shape
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