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Features
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Lizzie
Cocker
In
an age when xenophobia and Islamophobia are being stoked by illegal wars and
immigration myths, the need to wrench hidden realities from history in order to
see today's truths has never been more urgent.
And
thanks to the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC) founded by artist Ana Laura
Lopez de la Torre in 2007, a bit of this history became available to the public
last week at the Lambeth Archives in Brixton, south
Olive
Morris, despite her awe-inspiring short life, remains virtually unknown. And
she is one of the greatest unsung heroes I have ever come across. My encounter
with Morris began when a friend switched on my radar for forgotten female
protagonists. He mentioned a local project he was doing on four practically
unheard-of women activists who left in their wake cultural, social and
political improvements which are enjoyed not just in
Three
of these women were black.
With
my radar on standby, I stumbled across a website which asked me if I
"remember Olive Morris?" above a picture of a young black woman
smiling with her shades on behind a megaphone. No, I thought. I had never heard
of Olive Morris. And as I investigated further it became apparent that my
ignorance was widespread.
Morris
died aged just 27 in the 1970s. But she had such an unshakeable impact on those
who knew her that many of the people with memories, documents, photographs and
letters relating to this young woman responded to ROC's calls to make her story
a matter of public record.
As
a tireless campaigner for black women, a socialist and an internationalist,
Morris dedicated herself to fighting injustice wherever she saw it. One of the
most vivid examples was in 1969 when police arrested a Nigerian diplomat in
Brixton as he stepped out of his Mercedes. The police were so stunned to see a
black man with such a flashy car that their reflex was to treat him as a criminal
who had stolen it. Crowds gathered round gaping as the police began to beat
him. A 17-year-old Olive struggled through the spectators and physically tried
to stop the attack. She was flung down and subjected to black police boots
kicking her in her breasts. She was stripped naked and told as the blows kept
on coming: "This is the right colour for your body."
One
Nigerian student wrote in tribute to her upon her death: "It is reasonable
to expect that Olive Morris's heroism will be immortalised alongside such black
luminaries like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and many others who were proud to be
black."
But
despite this ROC found while putting the jigsaw of her life story together that
this woman remained only in the memories of those whose lives had crossed hers.
So
vivid were the memories that these pieces of the jigsaw have now found an
eternal home in the archives. As I hungrily sifted through them trying to
complete my own puzzle, it was Morris's typewritten words that climbed out of
the papers desperate to deliver the answers for problems we continue to face
today.
A
graduate in social sciences from
"The
most immediate way in which this can be done is for them to support the
struggle of the
Morris
sympathised with Trinidadian activist Claudia Jones who was poorly treated by
the Communist Party, which failed to acknowledge her far-reaching capabilities
and consigned her to an administrative role, and Grunwick striker Jayaben Desai
who was virtually abandoned by trade unions. She became disillusioned by
institutions for the working class, which instinctively she would have had the
most natural allegiance with.
"We
have used the great British tradition of trade unionism to try and further our
cause for equality and justice, but on countless occasions we have found that
the movement does one thing for white workers and another for black workers,"
said Morris. "White workers have time and time again refused to give our
unions recognition, they have crossed our picket lines for racist reasons, they
have organised against our organisation in the trade unions. "Take for
instance STC (Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd) where white trade unionists
and union officials - with exception of a few - put skin colour before the
overall interest of the proletariat and often resorted to physical violence
against their black fellow workers."
Morris
was exasperated by what she saw as an inherent self-interest that blocked
mainly white apparently progressive groups from seeing where the real battles
needed to be fought. She lambasted the Anti Nazi League "trendies"
for busying themselves with "shouting their empty phrase of 'black and
white unite and fight'." Empty, she said, "because there was no sound
basis on which such unity could be built." The ANL, she continued, has
"become one big carnival jamboree of political confusion for the middle class.
"It doesn't raise the political questions. It buries them in the name of
'broadness'." Morris highlighted that the National Front, which the ANL
directed all its enthusiasm into fighting, was merely a symptom and not a cause
of the racist ideologies and practices which prevailed in every sector of
society.
As
the black groups Morris worked with organised to fight oppression on all levels
- running supplementary schools, clubs and recreational facilities, clubbing
together to buy houses, striking, organising pickets and circulating petitions
- she urged people truly dedicated to fighting racism to confront the issues
which affect black people's lives on a daily basis in schools, the police,
local government and even trade unions. "Not a single problem associated
with racialism, unemployment, police violence and homelessness can be settled
by 'rocking' against the fascists, the police or the army," she said. "The
fight against racism and fascism is completely bound up with the fight to
overthrow capitalism, the system that breeds both." The symptomatic BNP
and other far-right organisations are rearing their ugly heads above the
fertile ground laid by a political framework which has perpetuated the
criminalisation, social immobility and isolation of black and ethnic
minorities.
But
black history has a lesson for the left. As long as support is only forthcoming
when racism is so visible that it can no longer be ignored rather than being
part of the daily battles against all discrimination that permeates society,
the struggle to create equal conditions for everyone will keep taking one step
forward and 10 steps back.
To
get a glimpse into the rest of Olive's life visit
rememberolivemorris.wordpress.com or visit the collection at the Lambeth
Archives in the Minet Library,
Born
in 1952 in
Died
of cancer in 1979
Travelled
to
A
council building in Lambeth bears her name
Groups
she cofounded or worked with:
The
Black Panther Movement (later the Black Workers Group),
Brixton
Black Women's Group
The
Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent
National
Co-ordinating Committee of Overseas Students
Black
Womens Mutual Aid Group
Brixton
Law Centre
The
squatter movement
