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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Join memorial to Claudia Jones to mark day of historic speech
ANGELA COBBINAH invites readers to help commemorate the 70th anniversary of the legendary black communist’s moving statement at the end of her nine-month US trial when she was found guilty of sedition
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
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
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
IN February 1953, following years of being hounded by the FBI and subjected to a string of arrests and imprisonments, Claudia Jones gave the speech of her life at the end of a nine-month trial in New York in which she and 12 other fellow communists were found guilty of sedition.
As the civil rights leader made an inventory of US injustices, she stated that she had been found guilty of fighting for the “full unequivocal equality for my people,” opposing the “bestial Korean war” and being “a member and an officer of the Communist Party.”
These were not criminal acts, she boldly declared, but the “advocacy of ideas.”
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