Olive Morris Memorial Award

Aspiring female black activists will be honoured at a ceremony named after one of the country's top civil rights heroines.

Nominations are open for the inaugural Olive Morris Memorial Award which will be given to three young women who are following in Morris' footsteps.

The awards are being organised by the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC), made up of a group of women from all backgrounds which was active between 2008 and 2010.

The awards will be ROC’s final public appearance and brings to a close a period of intense work carried out by the collective to preserve the memory of Olive Morris and the political movements she was part of.

Morris was regarded as an inspirational figure and a community activist in Brixton during the 1970s who died aged just 27 years old.

She was a key member of the British Black Panthers as well as a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and the Brixton Black Women's Group.

As well as playing a pioneering role in the local squatter campaigns in south London, Morris also supported student movements and Black women in London and Manchester.

The Jamaican-born activist moved to Britain at a young age but was at the forefront of activism as well as supporting liberation movements in the Third World.

The Olive Morris Memorial Award, which includes a cash prize of £500 to each winner, will be handed out in October and nomination is open to women aged 16 and 27 years of age and of African or Asian descent.

Nominees must be engaged in radical grassroots political work as organisers, advocates, activists or those who are victims of repression for their political activities.

Click here for a nominations form

All nomination forms should be returned by email to olivemorrishq@gmail.com by September 21, 2011.

Click here to find out more about the award and about Olive Morris