Brixton blue plaque for Olive Morris

[IwantToRetire]

The iconic Brixton activist Olive Morris was today (30 October) honoured with an official English Heritage blue plaque on Railton Road – scene of many of her renowned exploits.

The anti-racist, feminist and housing rights campaigner is celebrated at the site of the “longest-running squat in Britain”.

https://brixtonblog.com/2024/10/brixton-blue-plaque-for-olive-morris/

Most of the newspaper articles play down her importance in terms of feminist activism. And dont mention that long before Erin Pizzy she and others had set up what we would now call a Women's Aid Refuge.

There is a longer history about her life on wikipedia, which seems to have been put through the everything is queer machine, but gives some idea of the range and impact of her activism.

She died at the sadly young age of 27.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Morris

I'll look for it the next time I'm there. Thank you.

What an impressive woman. I agree she's not celebrated enough. ❤️

If you’d like a history without the queering, there’s a 2021 piece about her on the Black History Month website: How Olive Morris Fought for Black Women’s Rights in Britain; & for Black History Month last year Marsha de Cordova wrote them Saluting a Pioneer Voice: Olive Morris. They’ve also a wee announcement about the Blue Plaque with details of her life.

If you’d really like to find out about her, set aside some time for Do You Remember Olive Morris? The Remembering Olive Collective have done incredible work to prevent her being lost to history - an intriguing frustrating puzzle rather than rightly recognised & fitted into the bigger picture.

Sadly I think the Remembering Olive Morris Project was on one level a failure.

For whatever reason many who worked with her or knew her is some other way chose not to contribute. Really strange. But the bit from her brother is nice.

Its a bit like every few years she gets re-discovered. But maybe this is the same with Black History as a whole, never gets integrated into the "history" we all know.

AI linked to the wikipedia one because I think it has the best overall look at her life, but sadly is spoiled by the need to make it somehow seem she was part of a "queer" movement.

Even Fawcett has remembered her https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/blog/black-history-month-power-olive-morris

And once she was a google doodle! https://doodles.google/doodle/olive-morris-68th-birthday/

It might also be that the women who get remembered are the women who get books and articles published, but they are rarely the real front line activists.

Wow, she packed a lot into those 27 years. Thankyou for posting about her @IwantToRetire .