Have You Heard Of... Olive Morris?

Olive Morris was a community and political activist.

Olive Morris was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, in 1952. Her parents moved to London, with Olive and her brother Basil following in 1961, when Olive was 9.

Politically and acutely aware of the realities of racial discrimination, Olive entered into the fray as a teenager – literally, in an incident * in which she was arrested, age 17, and also by joining the Brixton youth section of the British Black Panther Movement.

Olive’s activism was just that - active. She didn’t hold back. As a young woman, Olive focused her unquenchable political awareness and energy into mobilising her community, particularly the women, against racial, sexual and class injustice. She organised anti-racist campaigns. She started support networks, and she was a key figure in the squatters’ campaign of the 70s. Establishing a squat highlighted the injustices in housing – properties standing empty, while all the people lived in poor, inadequate accommodation. Olive opened a squat at 121 Railton Road, Brixton, with friend and fellow activist Liz Obi, in 1973. The squat at 121 Railton Road went on to become Sabaar bookshop, and in the 80s, an anarchist centre. It was still a squat until 1999. Olive is also featured scaling a wall on the cover of The Squatter’s Handbook.

Olive was a founder member of the Brixton Black Women’s group, formed in 1974. The struggles of black women were a sharp focus for her, and when Olive went to Manchester University in 1975, to study social sciences, she carried on her work and activism in her new communities on Moss Side. It seems to me that Olive brought huge challenge and change wherever she went.

Olive was only 26 in 1978, when she became ill with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma while on holiday in Spain.

Olive Morris died a year later, in St Thomas’ hospital in London, aged 27.

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*There is a striking story about Olive from 1969, when she was 17. There was a scuffle around the arrest of a Nigerian diplomat outside a record store in Brixton. Diplomat Clement Gomwalk, driving his Mercedes, had been stopped and accused by the police of stealing the car. His ensuing protests were strengthened by those of the gathering crowd; at some point Olive entered into the fray. Olive was arrested. She attended King’s College Hospital after the arrest. Although accounts vary on exactly what happened in this story, Olive’s passion for actively standing up for human rights, and her willingness to get involved cannot be called into question.

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