In the dead of winter, they danced.

Jazz played.

They dressed up, spoke up, and got down.

This is the story of how this exiled black communists started one of the biggest parties in the world.

This is two-minute black history.

What you didn't learn in school.

There are many carnivals, but the one in Notting Hill, London has been called the second largest street party in the world. That carnival was brought to

Britain in 1959 by a Trinidadian communist named Claudia Jones. Jones, who challenged the

Communist Party with her black feminist politics, was deported from the United States for her work.

Soon she founded Britain's first black newspaper and acted in 1958's Notting Hill London

Rebellion against anti-Black mobs and police officers.

We need something to get the taste of Notting Hill out of our mouths, said Jones.

And those weren't empty words.

When Jones offered her Trinidadian tradition to London, it was January. As folks celebrated indoors,

sheltered from the freezing air, they played music, dance, and even hosted a beauty fashion. It was a celebration and an act of solidarity.

The event raised money for youth arrested during the uprising. It's no

coincidence that the idea of carnivals began with emancipated Caribbean who celebrated

slavery's end by subverting European masquerade traditions. The taste of enslavement

was denounced. It was time to bring in the joy.

After all, across the diaspora, joy and resistance have always been linked.

Our ancestors have always asserted that our existence is more than anti-Black violence.

Notting Hills, Carnival reminds us what our future will be like

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