On this day, 26 June 1952, Black feminist and squatting activist, Olive Morris was born in Harewood, Jamaica. Moving to London with her family, she became a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD), established the Brixton Black Women’s Group, was a member of the British Black Panther Movement, and helped found the Manchester Black Women’s Cooperative and Manchester Black Women’s Mutual Aid Group.
Morris was one of the first to squat at 121 Railton Road, Brixton London, an address which subsequently housed a range of community and political groups until the 1990s. She also wrote many articles, about topics like Black and Asian workers’ struggles, and critiques of strains of anti-fascism which ignored institutional, state and police racism.
In one speech, she declared that “the Black women’s movement is part of the world struggle for national liberation and the destruction of capitalism. Only when this is achieved can we ensure that our liberation as Black women is genuine, total and irreversible.”
Morris was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and died shortly after in 1979, aged just 27. Emma Allotey later recalled: “Her premature death was a shock to the community. A Lambeth council building, 18 Brixton Hill, was named after her in March 1986. There is a community garden and play area named after her in the Myatt’s Fields area. In 2009, Olive was chosen by popular vote as one of the historical figures to feature on a local currency, the Brixton Pound.”
Learn more about Black and Asian workers struggles in Britain at this time in this book:
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