Morris, Olive Elaine 1952-1979

There are some particular points of Morris' history which I found interesting surrounding her disillusionment with the 'traditional left' she encountered during her lifetime.

At university she was able to pursue her interest in socialism - research into her writing at the time shows that her education coupled with her organising in south London led to her becoming increasingly frustrated with the British left having “more in common with the ruling class and royalty than with fellow workers”. This was highlighted by Lizzie Cocker in an article published in the Morning Star of all places:

Morris saw echoes of her own life in Trinidadian activist Claudia Jones who was not supported by the Communist Party because of her gender and ethnicity and Grunwick striker Jayaben Desai who was shunned by trade unions. Instead Morris argued that “the British working class is faced with a choice either to defend the ‘national interest’ or throw their lot in with the opressred people of the Third World” by supporting those people in the UK. She became disillusioned by the established institutions of the white working class which she argued “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.”

“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.

For anyone wanting to know more on Olive Morris' life the excellent Do you remember Olive Morris? project is the place to look:

It began with the empassioned vision of London-based Uruguyan artist Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre who, in conjunction Liz Obi – a prominent community activist and friend of Morris’, created a project that will encompass the creation of public archive, training for volunteers and public events that celebrate Morris’ life and the significance that remembering figures like her has for contemporary Black feminism in the United Kingdom. Obi holds the only living archive of memorabilia and historical artefacts that document Morris’s activist work in the UK.

Quote from Olive would have told me to shut up and do something.

Steven / Mike - that JISC link works fine, just a bit slow to load because big files I think - the article is on page 21, I have screen grabbed here incase you can't get it to load (afaik the whole lot of Spare Rib is online free to access):

https://anonimag.es/image/JT9zMB5
https://anonimag.es/image/JT9zMBG

Steven.

There is almost no information online (at least that I have been able to find) about racism in the British workers' movement, other than the dockers marching for Enoch Powell and the Bristol bus boycott stuff we have digitised.

Would be an interesting series.

Some more info on Racism in British Trade Union Movement here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ur_n_kjoeE8C&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Standard+Telephones+and+Cables+strike+1973&source=bl&ots=XpwmwuyIhE&sig=13nrPR5-kmFlJBCntpCDRVQGuVw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidpZiukeLXAhUJuRoKHX4NA-QQ6AEIWDAL#v=onepage&q=Standard%20Telephones%20and%20Cables%20strike%201973&f=false