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.

At the age of 17, she claimed she was assaulted by Metropolitan Police officers following an incident involving a Nigerian diplomat in Brixton, South London.

She squatted buildings on Railton Road in Brixton; one hosted Sabarr Books and later became the 121 Centre, another was used as offices by the Race Today collective.

Her life and work have been commemorated both by official organisations – Lambeth Council named a building after her – and by the activist group the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC).

[12]: 207–208 [10]: 148–150  Similarly, black British activists challenged ideas of respectability by the choices they made for their adornment, clothing, and hair styles.

[12]: 207  They listened to reggae and soca from the Caribbean and soul from the United States, and displayed images of internationally known revolutionary figures, such as Che Guevara and Angela Davis.

[13] Morris was drawn into this movement because it allowed her to affirm her Caribbean roots and blackness, while also providing a means for her to fight against problems affecting her community.

[12]: 213 [16]: 127 [17] African-American scholar Tanisha C. Ford observes that Morris was gender-nonconforming in the same way as the activists of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the US, who cut their hair short and switched from wearing dresses and pearls to overalls.

[12]: 215 On 15 November 1969, Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk was confronted by Metropolitan Police officers while parked outside Desmond's Hip City, the first black record shop in Brixton.

[25]: 20  Morris was introduced to Altheia Jones-LeCointe, Farrukh Dhondy and Linton Kwesi Johnson and in August 1972, she attempted to meet Eldridge Cleaver, a leader of the US movement, in Algeria; travelling with her friend Liz Obi, she only made it as far as Morocco.

[28]: 171  At the trial of the Mangrove Nine, the Black Panthers organised solidarity pickets; the accused were eventually found not guilty, the judge acknowledging that officers of the Metropolitan Police were racially prejudiced.

The three were charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and took a political approach to their subsequent trial, requesting that members of the jury were either black, working-class or both.

[30][31] It was critical of white feminism, finding that issues such as abortion and wages for housework were not central to the black experience, since participants were more concerned about childcare and getting paid for their cleaning jobs.

[24][31] Having begun to squat buildings in Brixton on account of housing need, Morris came to see occupation as a means to establish political projects.

[11]: 75–76  Morris was also involved with the Race Today collective, which featured Farrukh Dhondy, Leila Hassan, Darcus Howe and Gus John.

[1][10]: 154  She quickly integrated with grassroots political organisations in Moss Side, co-founding the Black Women's Mutual Aid Group and meeting local activists such as Kath Locke and Elouise Edwards.

[38][39] Locke had set up the Manchester Black Women's Co-operative (MBWC) in 1975 with Coca Clarke and Ada Phillips; Morris got involved and members later recalled her vigour.

[10]: 153  As part of her internationalist perspective she participated in the National Co-ordinating Committee of Overseas Students and travelled to Italy and Northern Ireland.

[24] At the conference, 300 African, Asian and Caribbean women from cities including Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, London, Manchester and Sheffield came together to discuss issues that concerned them, such as housing, employment, health and education.

OWAAD aimed to be an umbrella group linking struggles and empowering women, whilst also opposing racism, sexism and other forms of oppression.

[1] Alongside other women such as Liz Obi, Morris played an important part in the creation of a feminist Black Power movement in the UK and anthropologist Tracy Fisher describes her contributions as "immeasurable".

[11]: 75 [42] The Brixton Black Women's Group published an obituary in the third issue of its newsletter praising Morris for her "total dedication to the struggles for liberation, democracy and socialism".

[18]: 10 [49]: 11 [50] ROC set up the Olive Morris Memorial Awards in 2011, in order to offer financial support to women of African or Asian descent aged between 16 and 27.

[1][51] In 2019, the collective was re-launched as ROC 2.0 since the council building bearing Morris's name was scheduled for demolition and the group wanted to ensure that she would continue to be remembered.

[52] Ford sees ROC as driven by community historians, who in the UK are often behind projects such as the Black Cultural Archives, the Feminist Library and the George Padmore Institute.

[4] In 2017, a mural entitled "SAY IT LOUD" was painted in the Blenheim Gardens housing estate in Brixton, as part of the Watch This Space initiative.

[56] Morris was also named by the Evening Standard on a list of 14 "Inspirational Black British Women Throughout History" alongside Seacole, Mark, Busby, Abbott, Claudia Jones, Adelaide Hall, Joan Armatrading, Tessa Sanderson, Doreen Lawrence, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Sharon White, Malorie Blackman, and Zadie Smith.