Despite being twice included on lists of influential Black Britons, Olive Morris is still frequently overlooked in British history.

She moved to the UK as a child in 1962, leaving behind her birthplace of St. Catherine, Jamaica, for Lavender Hill in Battersea. She left school without qualifications to attend classes at the London College of Printing, though she later studied for O- and A-Levels.

The 1960s and 70s in Britain saw an alarming rise in the far-right movement and systemic racism, which became particularly intense in the wake of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. African, African-Caribbean, and Asian communities suffered attacks from fascist groups such as the National Front, as well as facing housing and employment discrimination and tension with the police. Further, the ‘sus law’ was active at the time, giving police stop and search powers which were used disproportionately against Black people.

Morris was involved in such an incident at the age of seventeen when she witnessed the attempted arrest of Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk. He had parked his car outside a record shop and, believing it was stolen, the police tried to arrest him, beating him in the process. Morris and several others rushed to stop them, and they were in turn brutalised and arrested, treated so badly that Morris’s brother said he ‘could hardly recognize her face, they beat her so badly’. Due to her habit of dressing in a deliberately androgynous way and keeping her hair cropped short, police claimed not to believe she was female and so forced her to strip, then threatened her with rape. She was eventually released with a £10 fine and a three-year suspended sentence for three months.

This experience was formative for Morris and she became a Marxist-Leninist communist and a radical feminist with intersectional politics. She became a member of the Black Panther Youth League (not affiliated with the US Black Panthers) and took part in solidarity pickets to protest trials of Black activists on trumped up charges. She was once more arrested, alongside two other people, at the trial of the Oval Four and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The three requested the members of the jury be Black, working-class, or both, and they were acquitted, in part due to contradictory evidence given by police officers.

Upon the collapse of the Black Panthers, Morris, friend Liz Obi, and fellow activist Beverley Bryan co-founded the Brixton Black Women’s Group, which aimed to explore the experience of women in the Black Panthers. This was among the first Black women’s networks in Britain, and was one of several political organisations located in and around Brixton, which became a hub for counter-culture political activity.

As well as opposing police brutality, Morris was concerned with social housing issues. After two boys who were living in public housing were killed in a fire caused by a faulty heater, she threw herself into protests over heating safety, which eventually led to the installation of central heating. Furthermore, she was involved in squatting, a movement intended to draw attention to the number of vacant homes in London despite thousands being on waiting lists or homeless.

One of the buildings Morris and Obi squatted in was 121 Railton Road, Brixton. It later became a self-managed anarchist social centre which hosted groups such as Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross, Black People against State Harassment, and an anarchist queer group. It was also home to Sabarr bookshop, one of the first black community bookshops.

The 121 Centre outlived Morris, remaining open until the Lambeth London Borough Council repossessed the building in 1999.

If she was alive she would still be out there demonstrating. She would still be fighting.

Jennifer Lewis, Olive Morris’s sister

Between 1974-78, Morris travelled around the world, visiting China, Italy, Northern Ireland, and returning to Jamaica for six weeks. She continued campaigning, writing a piece on anti-imperialism in China and making a return to studying. She earned a degree in economics and social science from the Victoria University of Manchester, where she became involved in the Manchester Black Women’s Co-operative.

She returned to Brixton in 1978 and wrote a pamphlet entitled ‘Has the Anti-Nazi League got it right on racism?’, which explored how they fought facism whilst ignoring institutional racism. In the same year, Morris helped to set up the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and became editor of its newsletter FOWAD!

Tragically, Morris’s life was cut short a short time later. After feeling ill, she was diagnosed in September 1978 with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Treatment was unsuccessful and she died less than a year later, on 12th July 1979, aged 27.

The memory of Olive Morris remains alive through her friends and fellow activists. The Remembering Olive Collective (ROC; now ROC 2.0) was set up in 2009, which stewards the Olive Morris Collection at Lambeth Archives. Morris also now has a blue plaque (unveiled 26th June 2021), located at her former home.

Sources:

• Tsang, Amie, ‘Olive Morris’, The New York Times (New York, N.Y: New York Times Company, 2019), p. A24
• https://olivemorris.org/
• https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/civil-rights-movement/how-olive-morris-fought-for-black-womens-rights-in-britain/
• https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/olive-elaine-morris-1952-1979/
• https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/civil-rights-movement/saluting-a-pioneer-voice-olive-morris/