Olive Elaine Morris (26 June 1952 – 12 July 1979) was a Jamaican-born British-based

community leader and activist in the feminist, Black nationalist, and squatters'

rights campaigns of the 1970s. Morris was a key organiser in the Black Women's Movement
in the United Kingdom, co-founding the Organisation of Women of African and Asian
Descent in London and support groups in Manchester. She joined the British Black
Panthers and squatted 121 Railton Road in Brixton.
Quick Facts: Born, Died ...
Morris died at the age of 27 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Her life and work have been
commemorated by the naming of a Lambeth Councilbuilding after and a depiction on the
original B£1 note of the Brixton Pound. She features on several lists of inspirational Black
British women and in 2020 what would have been her 68th birthday was marked by a Google
doodle.
Early life
Olive Morris was born in 1952 in Harewood, St Catherine, Jamaica, to Doris Lowena
(née Moseley) and Vincent Nathaniel Morris. As part of the Windrush generation, the family emigrated to England
when she was nine.
 She had three brothers and two sisters, and lived in South London  attending Heathbrook Primary  for most of her life,

School, Lavender Hill Girls' Secondary School, and Tulse Hill Secondary School. Leaving school without qualifications, she
later studied at the London College of Printing (now named the London College of Communication).

Adult life and activism

Mistreatment following Clement Gomwalk incident

See also:  Institutional racism § United Kingdom List of cases of police brutality in the United Kingdom
, and 

On 15 November 1969, Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk was confronted by police

while parked outside "Desmond's Hip City", the first Black record shop in Brixton The police did not believe
him when he said he was a diplomat. Accused of stealing his car under the "sus law " (suspected person), the police dragged him out of his Mercedes car to interrogate him

 Local journalist Aymo Martin Tajo later stated that Morris "broke through the crowd to
and continued to beat him as a crowd formed around them to witness the brutality.

the scuffle" and "tried to physically stop the police from beating the Nigerian", the police reaction being to beat her
also. However, Morris's account was that she did not arrive until after the diplomat had been
taken away by the police. She was then 17 years old.
The situation with the police escalated after the crowd began to confront them about their
brutal treatment of Gomwalk. Morris recalled her friend