Do you remember Olive Morris?

Olive Morris was an important community figure in Lambeth’s local history. She worked with the Black Panther Movement; was co-founder of the Brixton Black Women’s Group and the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD), and was central to the squatter campaigns of the 1970s. She died tragically young in 1979 at age 27.

You can Download a pdf short biographical note on Olive Morris, written by Emma Allotey and published by the Remembering Olive Collective.

The aim of this blog is to create a collective portrait of Olive Morris, bringing together the personal memories of those who knew her, and publishing online information and materials relating to her life and the life of the people and organisations that she worked with. Lambeth Council has one of its main buildings named after her and yet until now there was very little information about Olive Morris that is publicly available, especially on the Internet.

Do you remember Olive Morris? is a community project comprising archival and oral history research, an ongoing blog and a radio series. It aims to document the life and times of Olive Morris. The research, activities and outputs of this project are carried out by the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC), a group of women volunteers of different backgrounds and generations. The archive resulting from the project will be made available at Lambeth Archives for permanent public use. The project is supported by a partnership between Gasworks, and Lambeth Women’s Project. The project’s advisers also include the Black Cultural Archives and Brixton Library.

This blog was set up by artist Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre back in 2007 in collaboration with community activist Liz Obi, whose personal archive of documents relating to Olive’s life forms the core of a larger and ongoing community history project comprising sound interviews, research in archives, events, publishing and an exhibition. Ana Laura and Liz collaboration led to the formation in October 2008 of ROC – the Remembering Olive Collective, a women’s group who work together to create public and permanent memories celebrating the life of Olive Morris and other women of her generation.

The blog was launched with support from Lambeth Archives and London Metropolitan Archive, as part of Lambeth’s Black History Month Celebrations 2007.

Contribute: Leave your comments or add your memories

This blog will be archived at the Lambeth Landmarks website and by the British Library as part of their Web Conservation Project. The contents of this blog will be preserved by both institutions and made permanently available to the public. Therefore we would like to ensure that all contributors to the blog, including those that leave comments, are aware of this process.

By submitting your comment you are automatically giving ROC (Remembering Olive Collective), Lambeth Landmarks and the British Library permission to store and publish it. However if you wish to withdraw this permission, you will need to do so by emailing us, or getting in touch with us through the comment box at the foot of this page.

The Do you remember Olive Morris blog and its contents (unless otherwise stated) is licensed by ROC for public use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 UK. This means people will be able to share and remix the material, as long as it is for non-commercial purposes and they credit ROC and any other identified author of content as the source.

The blog will be archived in October 2009, please sure you get in touch with us before this date if you have any further questions.

Many thanks for your contribution to this collective portrait of Olive Morris,

Warm wishes

ROC (Remembering Olive Collective)

Do you remember Olive Morris? is a community project comprising archival and oral history research, an ongoing blog and a radio series. It aims to document the life and times of Olive Morris. The research, activities and outputs of this project are carried out by the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC), a group of women volunteers of different backgrounds and generations. The archive resulting from the project will be made available at Lambeth Archives for permanent public use. The project is supported by a partnership between Gasworks, and Lambeth Women’s Project. The project’s advisers also include the Black Cultural Archives and Brixton Library.

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