36 Facts About Olive Morris

Olive Elaine Morris was a Jamaican-born British-based community leader and activist in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s.

Olive Morris squatted buildings on Railton Road in Brixton; one hosted Sabarr Books and later became the 121 Centre, another was used as offices by the Race Today collective.

When Olive Morris studied at the Victoria University of Manchester, her activism continued.

Olive Morris was involved in the Manchester Black Women's Co-operative and travelled to China with the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding.

Olive Morris became ill and received a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Olive Morris was born on 26 June 1952 in Harewood, St Catherine, Jamaica.

Olive Morris's parents were Vincent Nathaniel Morris and Doris Lowena, and she had five siblings.

Olive Morris's father was employed as a forklift driver and her mother worked in factories.

Olive Morris later studied for O-Levels and A-levels, and attended a class at the London College of Printing.

Olive Morris was drawn into this movement because it allowed her to affirm her Caribbean roots and blackness, while providing a means for her to fight against problems affecting her community.

Olive Morris was described by other activists as fearless and dedicated, refusing to stand by and allow injustice to occur.

Oumou Longley, a gender studies and black history researcher, notes that Olive Morris's identity was complex: "A Jamaican-born woman who grew up in Britain, a squatter with a degree from Manchester University, a woman with a long-term white-skinned partner and a woman who during this time had intimate relationships with other men and women".

Olive Morris deliberately appeared androgynous, adopting a "queer revolutionary soul sister look".

Olive Morris smoked, preferred jeans and T-shirts, either went bare-footed or wore comfortable shoes, and wore her hair in a short-cropped Afro.

African-American scholar Tanisha C Ford observes that Morris was gender-nonconforming in the same way as the activists of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the US, who cut their hair short and switched from wearing dresses and pearls to overalls.

Local journalist Ayo Martin Tajo wrote up an account of the events a decade later which stated that Olive Morris pushed through the crowd and attempted to stop the police hitting the diplomat; this led to the police assaulting her and several others.

Olive Morris recalled her friend being dragged away by police, shouting "I've done nothing" as his arm was broken.

Olive Morris did not relate exactly how she became involved, but did record that she was arrested and later beaten in police custody.

Olive Morris decided to campaign against police harassment and joined the youth section of the British Black Panthers at the beginning of the 1970s.

Olive Morris was introduced to Altheia Jones-LeCointe, Farrukh Dhondy and Linton Kwesi Johnson and in August 1972, she attempted to meet Eldridge Cleaver, a leader of the US movement, in Algeria; travelling with her friend Liz Obi, she only made it as far as Morocco.

In 1973, Olive Morris squatted 121 Railton Road with Liz Obi.

The Advisory Service for Squatters used a photograph of Olive Morris climbing up the back wall of the squat on the cover of its 1979 Squatters Handbook.

Olive Morris was involved with the Race Today collective, which featured Farrukh Dhondy, Leila Hassan, Darcus Howe and Gus John.

Olive Morris studied economics and social science at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1975 until 1978.

Olive Morris quickly integrated with grassroots political organisations in Moss Side, co-founding the Black Women's Mutual Aid Group and meeting local activists such as Kath Locke and Elouise Edwards.

Locke had set up the Manchester Black Women's Co-operative in 1975 with Coca Clarke and Ada Phillips; Olive Morris got involved and members later recalled her vigour.

Olive Morris campaigned against the university's plans to increase tuition fees for overseas students.

Olive Morris helped to establish a supplementary school after campaigning with local black parents for better education provision for their children, and a black bookshop.

Whilst on a cycling trip in Spain with McColgan in 1978, Olive Morris began to feel ill.

Alongside other women such as Liz Obi, Olive Morris played an important part in the creation of a feminist Black Power movement in the UK and anthropologist Tracy Fisher describes her contributions as "immeasurable".

The local housing benefit office was based there; Olive Morris had demonstrated outside the office for better housing rights.

In 2019, the collective was re-launched as ROC 2.0 since the council building bearing Olive Morris's name was scheduled for demolition and the group wanted to ensure that she would continue to be remembered.

Olive Morris was named by the Evening Standard on a list of 14 "Inspirational Black British Women Throughout History" alongside Seacole, Mark, Busby, Abbott, Claudia Jones, Adelaide Hall, Joan Armatrading, Tessa Sanderson, Doreen Lawrence, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Sharon White, Malorie Blackman, and Zadie Smith.

Olive Morris was recognised with a Google Doodle in the UK on 26 June 2020 to mark what would have been her 68th birthday.

In 2021, Olive Morris Court opened in Tottenham, on the site of a former storage yard.

In October 2024, Olive Morris was commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque that was unveiled at 121 Railton Road.