I was not here in the 70s so no, I don’t remember Olive Morris but do remember the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) in the early 80s which she was a founder member. Morris was part of the Brixton Black Panther Party and early post -WWII Black struggle in Britain.

Olive Morris was a key figure in Lambeth’s local history. She worked with the Black Panther movement; set up Brixton Black Women’s Group, was a founder member of The Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and was central to the squatter campaigns of the 1970s. She died tragically young in 1979 at age 27.

The aim of this weblog 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 work. Lambeth Council has one of its main buildings named after her and yet there is very little information about Olive Morris that is publicly available, especially on the Internet.

By the mid 80s police racial harassment along with the “sus - stop and search” laws contributed to the Brixton riots of 1981 and 1985; the Handsworth riots of 81 and 85 and Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. .

Tags:

Black Britain
Brixton Black Panthers
Brixton Riots

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.

In 1959, she performed in the musical King Kong alongside Hugh Masekela, her future husband. Though she was a successful recording artist, she was only receiving a few dollars for each recording session and no provisional royalties, and was keen to go to the US. Her break came when she starred in the anti-Apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959. When the Italian government invited her to the premier of the film at the Venice Film Festival, she decided not to return home. Her South African passport was revoked shortly afterwards.

Makeba then travelled to London where she met Harry Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States. She released many of her most famous hits there including Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa), and Malaika. In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under Apartheid
[more…].

What I personally remember of Miriam is the voice, and the way she was beloved. My folks listened to her at the same time as they listened to Jim Reeves (go figure), and the two form the basis of my pre-teen musical heritage, together with my mother singing around her chores, around her cooking, singing Sesotho traditional songs or Miriam’s Xhosa songs: The Click Song, or Khawuleza. Beautiful woman. Happy birthday to her.

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Today in 1855, an enslaved 19 year old Black girl and mother named Celia was executed for murder after being found guilty by a jury of 12 white men. Melton McLaurin’s book Celia: A Slave is the story of her rape by her master and her trial for his murder. (Via Marian’s Blog)

The State of Missouri vs. Celia: A Slave officially began on June 25, 1855. Celia was charged with murdering her master and the father of her children; furthermore, she disposed of his body in her fireplace. In 1850, Robert Newsom, a widower, of Calloway County, Missouri, purchased Celia for the purpose of being his concubine. Newsom was 60 and Celia was 14. Five years and two children later, Celia wanted to end the relationship; of course, Newsom would not allow it. Therefore, Celia took matters into her own hands and struck Newsom over the head until he was dead. Despite the fact that she was pregnant again and ill, she dragged and shoved Newsom’s body into the fireplace in her cottage and destroyed the evidence of her crime. However, another slave with whom Celia was involved led the investigators to Celia’s door. Intense and lengthy interrogation followed, and Celia confessed to murdering Newsom. She was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. After exhausting the appeals process, she was executed in Calloway County, Missouri, at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, December 21, 1855. Celia was 19 years old. There are no records of where she was buried or what became of her children or other members of the Newsom family.

I just finished reading “I, Tituba” by Maryse Conde. Tituba was among the many women of Salem who were accused of witchcraft in 1692. The difference is that Tituba was a Black woman, a slave from the Caribbean who was like millions of other slave women, is lost to memory. Rescued by Maryse Conde from “historical silence”, Tituba comes back to life as the slave girl/woman who will not compromise. Though she spends much of her life chained and shackled, Tibuba remains persistent throughout in her refusal to be bound by the chains of mental slavery, racism and puritan ideals of sexuality.

Links:
A Citizen’s Reflections on Race, Violence and Power by Cynthia Boaz
Remembering Celia, 19 & enslaved: hanged Friday 21st, 1855

Tags:
Slavery
USA
Afrodescendant

A tribute to Sajida Khan, who fought against global capitalism at the continent’s largest rubbish dump - a fight that cost her life. Sajida was a key activist against carbon trading and died as a direct result of the toxins emitted from illegal medical waste in an incinerator and waste from a nearly paper mill and sugar factory on her doorstep. The landfill site will continue to emit toxins for the next 27 20 years.

Below is the Google Earth rendition showing the landfill and the surrounding houses in Durban including her family’s.

Sometimes when lives are judged by visual victories, we see failures, and after all, the dump remains right outside Sajida’s front door after her 14 year fight. But on the other hand, if a life is judged by a legacy that endures and is built upon, hers is one of multiple larger victories: of a woman standing against male domination of nationalist politics, of knowledge about global capitalist ecology over amnesia, of ordinary people harnessing the most incredible forms of expertise so as to enter forums usually dominated by people with multiple degrees, and of a political ecology that is a politics of all the people. Whatever you might say about her race and class privilege, the final denominator is that she’ll die fighting the cancer infection, and fighting the dump that gave her that cancer. This was not a death of privilege, it was murder Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada [Ashwin Desai]

The government had repeatedly broken it’s promise to close the dump and the practice continued unchecked in the post Apartheid period. In 1996 a landfill in Umhlanga, white suburb in the north of Durban, began closing down. And where did the waste previously destined for Umhlanga go? To Bisasar Road.

According to Carl Albrecht, research director at the Cancer Association of SA,

‘Clare Estate residents are like animals involved in a biological experiment.’

Sajida Khan documented 70% of Bisasar Road households with tumor cases, not to mention severe respiratory problems. Bisasar Road toxic dumps are replicated across the continent and no one knows how many poor people, many unaware of the dangers of the air they breathe, have died and continue to die from this practice.

Sources:
see CCS also for an interview with Sajida and more on her work as an eco-feminist activist.

“Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere” A Civil Society Energy Reader edited by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada.

Links: South Africa: Durban’s perfume rods, plastic covers and sweet-smelling toxic dump

Tags: Sajida Khan; Africa; Carbon Trading; Toxic Waste; Durban + South Africa

Today is the anniversary of the death of Kimpa Vita who together with her baby (Kembo Dianzenza va Kintete) and her boyfriend, were burned to death on July 2nd 1706 by the Catholic church. I only just found out about Kimpa Vita - there is so much of our African and Diaspora history that is unknown to the majority of African people. Who was Kimpa Vita? Information is scarce but Kimpa Vita is one of a long lines of courageous politicised Queens of the Kongo (parts of present day Angola and Congo) who fought against slavery and colonialists as early as the 15century. Women such as Ndona Nzinga, Ndona Mafuta and Ndona Dondwa. The importance of Kimpa Vita is that she fought against slavery and exposed the racism and misogyny of the Catholic church and also incorporated traditional religions with Christianity.

The 17th century gave birth to an icon called Kimpa Vita Dona Beatriz. She concerned herself with the restoration, spiritually and politically, of the Kongo Kingdom. Born in 1684 Kimpa Vita worked as a religious actor[kp1] and was mostly isolated from the rest of her peers. At the time when the Kongo was dominated by political unrest and civil war. Therefore Kimpa Vita’s religious ideology came as an answer to the prayers of many Kongolese people. In her message she combined traditional Kongolese culture with Christianity.

Today she is remembered in “Kanda commune, northern Zaire Province” of Angola

Tags: African Queens; Kongo; Kimpa Vita ;

I would really be interested in finding out more about these African Queens so if any one knows anything please do leave a comment

UPDATE:

Tribute to Dona Beatrice Kimpa Vita