Liz Obi

Last updated

Elizabeth Obi is a British activist who was involved in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s. A close friend of Olive Morris, in 2009 she founded the Remembering Olive Collective, which researches and documents Morris's life.

Life

Obi was close friends with fellow activist Olive Morris and, in 1972, they attempted to visit Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, but only made it as far as Morocco. [1] They joined the British Black Panthers together and met other young black feminists and black nationalists such as Jackie Blake, Geneva DaCosta and Stella Dadzie. [1] [2] Also in 1972, the two women squatted a privately-owned property above a laundrette at 121 Railton Road in Brixton. [3] Morris and Obi then moved on to another squat at 65 Railton Road. [1] [4] :101 The 121 squat became the 121 Centre and continued to be occupied until 1999. [3] Together with Beverley Bryan, Obi and Morris established the Brixton Black Women's Group (BBWG) in 1973. [5]

In 2008, Obi set up the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC) in tandem with Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, intending to commemorate the life of Olive Morris. [6]

In 2015, Obi took part in the conference "Black British Feminism: Past, Present and Futures" at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton organised by a new generation of Black British feminists such as Chardine Taylor-Stone and others. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great change throughout the world. The WLM branch of radical feminism, based in contemporary philosophy, comprised women of racially and culturally diverse backgrounds who proposed that economic, psychological, and social freedom were necessary for women to progress from being second-class citizens in their societies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Bellos</span>

Linda Ann Bellos is a British businesswoman, radical feminist and gay-rights activist. In 1981 she became the first woman of African descent to join the Spare Rib collective. She was elected to Lambeth Borough Council in London in 1985 and was the leader of the council from 1986 to 1988.

Transnational feminism refers to both a contemporary feminist paradigm and the corresponding activist movement. Both the theories and activist practices are concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. This movement asks to critique the ideologies of traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices from an intersectional approach and how these connect with labor, theoretical applications, and analytical practice on a geopolitical scale.

Black feminism, also known as Afro-feminism chiefly outside the United States, is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism. Black feminism also acknowledges the additional marginalization faced by black women due to their social identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Railton Road</span> Street in London Borough of Lambeth

Railton Road runs between Brixton and Herne Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth. The road is designated the B223. At the northern end of Railton Road it becomes Atlantic Road, linking to Brixton Road at a junction where the Brixton tube station is located. At the southern end is Herne Hill railway station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia Jones</span> Trinidad-born journalist and activist (1915–1964)

Claudia Vera Jones was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and Black nationalist, adopting the name Jones as "self-protective disinformation". Due to the political persecution of Communists in the US, she was deported in 1955 and subsequently lived in the United Kingdom. Upon arriving in the UK, she immediately joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and would remain a member for the rest of her life. She then founded Britain's first major Black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette, in 1958, and played a central role in founding the Notting Hill Carnival, the second-largest annual carnival in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olive Morris</span> Jamaican-born British community leader and activist (1952–1979)

Olive Elaine Morris 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 joined the British Black Panthers, becoming a Marxist–Leninist communist and a radical feminist. 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. Morris became a key organiser in the Black Women's Movement in the United Kingdom, co-founding the Brixton Black Women's Group and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The personal is political</span> Political slogan and argument of second-wave feminism

The personal is political, also termed The private is political, is a political argument used as a rallying slogan of student movement and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. In the context of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was a challenge to the nuclear family and family values. The phrase was popularized by the publication of a 1969 essay by feminist Carol Hanisch under the title "The Personal Is Political" in 1970, and has been repeatedly described as a defining characterization of second-wave feminism, radical feminism, women's studies, or feminism in general. It has also been used by some women artists as the underlying philosophy for their art practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TERF (acronym)</span> Acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist

TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The term refers to an ideology or movement known variously as trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) or gender-critical feminism. First recorded in 2008, the term TERF was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists and social conservatives who reject the position that trans women are women, including trans women in women's spaces, and transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists who support transfeminism assert that these ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people. The use of the term TERF has since broadened to include reference to people with trans-exclusionary views who are not necessarily involved with radical feminism.

The Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) was an activist organisation for British Black and Asian women established in 1978, with founder members including Stella Dadzie, Olive Morris, and Gail Lewis. It has been called "a watershed in the history of Black women's rights activism".

Stella Dadzie is a British educationalist, activist, writer and historian. She is best known for her involvement in the UK's Black Women's Movement, being a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) in the 1970s, and co-authoring with Suzanne Scafe and Beverley Bryan in 1985 the book The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain. In 2020, Verso published a new book by Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly: Women, Slavery & Resistance.

The British Black Panthers (BBP) or the British Black Panther movement (BPM) was a Black Power organisation in the United Kingdom that fought for the rights of black people and racial minorities in the country. The BBP were inspired by the US Black Panther Party, though they were unaffiliated with them. The British Panthers adopted the principle of political blackness, which included activists of black as well as South Asian origin. The movement started in 1968 and lasted until around 1973.

Beverley Bryan is a Jamaican educationist and retired academic who was a professor of language education at the University of the West Indies in Mona. Settling in Britain with her parents in the late 1950s, she went on to become a founding member of the Brixton Black Women's Group and co-authored the 1985 book The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">121 Centre</span> Evicted social centre in London

121 Centre was a squatted self-managed social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London from 1981 until 1999. As an anarchist social centre, the venue hosted a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting space, office space, printing facility, and rehearsal space. Organisations using the space included Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group. Regular events at 121 Centre included punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night. The centre kept a low profile and was one of the longest-lasting squats in London.

Lola Olufemi is a British writer. She is an organiser with the London Feminist Library, and her writing has been published in many national and international magazines and newspapers. She is the author of Experiments in Imagining Otherwise and Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power, and the co-editor of A FLY Girl's Guide to University: Being a Woman of Colour at Cambridge and Other Institutions of Power and Elitism.

Gail Lewis is a British writer, psychotherapist, researcher, and activist. She is Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics, and Reader Emerita of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College. She trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic.

Leila Hassan Howe is a British editor and activist, who was a founding member of the Race Today Collective. She worked for the Institute of Race Relations and became editor of the Race Today journal in 1986. Hassan was also a member of the Black Unity and Freedom Party. She is co-editor of a collection of writings from Race Today published in 2019.

The Brixton Black Women's Group (BWG) was an organisation for black women in Brixton. One of the first black women's groups in the UK, the BWG existed from 1973 to 1985. A socialist feminist group, it aimed to raise consciousness and organise around issues specifically affecting black women.

Gerlin Bean is a Jamaican community worker who was active in the radical feminist and Black nationalist movements in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s. Trained as a nurse, she became a dedicated community activist and social worker, involved in the founding of the Black Women's Action Committee of the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the women's section of the Black Liberation Front, the Brixton Black Women's Group, and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD). Bean's work and activism focused on eliminating discriminatory policies for people of colour, women, and people with disabilities. She fought for equal educational opportunity, fair wages, adequate housing, and programmes that supported families, such as counselling services, child care, and health care.

Chardine Taylor-Stone is a British feminist activist, writer and musician. In December 2015 Taylor-Stone founded Stop Rainbow Racism to campaign against the performance of ‘Black face’ at LGBTQ+ Venues. The campaign began in response to a performance by Drag queen Charlie Hides at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Taylor-Stone is the drummer for Big Joanie since the band was founded in 2013.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Allotey, Emma (24 May 2012). "Morris, Olive Elaine (1952–1979)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/100963. ISBN   978-0-19-861412-8.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Ford, Tanisha C. (22 February 2016). "Violence at Desmond's Hip City: Gender and Soul Power in London". In Kelley, R.; Stephen Tuck (eds.). The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States. Springer. p. 212. ISBN   978-1-137-39270-1.
  3. 1 2 Queen of the Neighbourhood Collective. (2010). Revolutionary women: A book of stencils. Oakland, CA: PM Press. ISBN   9781604864649. OCLC   700457644.
  4. Bettocchi, Milo (2021). Fairies, Feminists & Queer Anarchists: Geographies of Squatting in Brixton (Thesis). University of Nottingham.
  5. Akpan, Paula (1 September 2020). "Why the teaching of Black British history must be transformed in our schools". Good Housekeeping. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  6. Longley, Oumou (November 2021). "Olive and me in the archive: a Black British woman in an archival space". Feminist Review. 129 (1): 123–137. doi:10.1177/01417789211041898. ISSN   0141-7789. S2CID   244348631.
  7. "14 March 2015 12:00 ~ Black British Feminism: Past, Present and Futures – Black Cultural Archives – London | womensgrid – women's news". www.womensgrid.org.uk. 19 February 2015. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  8. Bangura, Siana (13 March 2015). "I too am Black and a Feminist: On the importance of Black British Feminism". Media Diversified. Retrieved 16 December 2022.