Talk:Olive Morris

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 March 2020 and 1 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amayacg. Peer reviewers: O.Joness22, Jaytea22.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

The word "cunt"

I don't think the word cunt has a place in an encyclopedia. The bad treatment of Olive by the police is well documented in this article without the need for actual quotations which are hearsay. School children will read this article. The quote is very inflammatory and might inspire anger and hatred which is exactly what we try to avoid these days. Andrew ranfurly (talk) 08:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree it inflammatory and I guess that why it was said. I don't agree with your conclusion Andrew, but this is your encyclopedia and you can just change it and find out the consensus Victuallers (talk) 09:44, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it should remain. Shocking, but a direct quote from Olive Morris. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.228.4 (talk • contribs)

I completely disagree, wikipedia isn't supposed to censor, especially the facts of a direct quote. Plus I don't think that it will inspire anger or hatred, it shows how racist the police were and to censor would be almost distorting history, it will do the opposite of inspiring anger and hatred. Novalia (talk) 10:03, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

It's appropriate in the context. See WP:NOTCENSORED. -- The Anome (talk) 10:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Here are the guidelines on the uses of quotations: WP:QUOTE. There's a value in making this biography one that teachers can easily use; there is also value in making plain the threats of sexualised violence from the police. How to balance these? This section is the longest, and arguably could be compressed for that reason. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:37, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Disagree. It's weird that you are more offended by the bad language then you are by the rape. By your logic, should we also go to the wiki page for Martin Luther King and remove all mentions to him being shot? The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 20:44, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Olive Morris STREET ART by BREEZE YOKO.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

• This image got deleted, which I think is a bit silly to be honest. But I guess the way to get it back and ensure its survival would be if someone has the time to go through the permissions process and got an acknowledgement from Breeze Yoko, who appears to be a Johannesburg based artist. Mujinga (talk) 08:27, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Lead

Hiya the article is now B-class and 20k, which is great! This means it could in turn do with a longer lead. MOS:LEADLENGTH suggests 2 or 3 paragraphs for articles of between 15k and 30k. I expanded the lead to 2 paragraphs then was reverted so I thought I'd check here what people think. At the moment I don't think the lead is summarising the article well. Mujinga (talk) 11:21, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not averse to expanding it. Given that there are so many commemorations of her, as described in the article, it would seem logical to indicate this in the lead. Indicating her early death is relevant, but not the illness, I think. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:10, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, I made a second paragraph with info about her legacy, see what you think and of course feel free to change anything. I would say it is relevant to mention the cause of death since it explains why she died so young, but I've left it out for now. Mujinga (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I like the way this is going. The paragraph as it now stands says:

Morris died at the age of 27. Her life and work have been commemorated by the naming of a Lambeth Council building after her and a portrait on the original B£1 note of the Brixton Pound. The Olive Morris memorial award was launched in 2011 to give bursaries to young Black women. She features on several lists of inspirational Black British women and in 2020 what would have been her 68th birthday was marked by a Google doodle.

I'd prefer to give the lead a wider scope and at the same time to trim this a bit, to avoid repeating the details in the text. How about:

Morris died at the age of 27. Her life and work have been widely commemorated, both by official organisations -- Lambeth Council named a building after her -- and by [not sure what the right phrase is -- autonomous collectives?]. She features on lists of inspirational Black British women and in June 2020 was brought to wider attention with a Google Doodle.

How does that sound? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me, happy for you to make changes or for other people to suggest things. "Lambeth Council named a building after her" definitely reads better than the current version, I'm also ok with some repetition in the lead. Mujinga (talk) 17:16, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Done. I went with "activist groups" but feel free to improve on that.Carbon Caryatid (talk) 01:40, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Nice one. For my feeling the intro could still be a bit more fleshed out but I'll leave off editing it for a while to see if anyone else wants to add anything. Cheers! Mujinga (talk) 12:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

GA nomination

You know what, I decided to be bold and to nominate this article as a good article. I've edited it a bit over the years and would welcome any input from other contributors if they wanted to get involved, when the review eventually happens. Paging @Carbon Caryatid: in case you were interested. Mujinga (talk) 12:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. Doesn't my previous editing mean I shouldn't get involved in the review? I'm happy to give the article another round of wiki-gnoming, if it undergoes significant changes during the GA process. I'll keep it on my watchlist, but frankly it's an unmanageable length, so feel free to ping me again if there's anything specific I can do. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Carbon Caryatid: hi again the review already started if you are interested. just in case it's not clear i was asking if you wanted to be a co-nominator since you have also worked on the article. cheers! Mujinga (talk) 17:34, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

FA nomination

This article is now a good article and I've just listed it for peer review, with an eye (per comments made at the GA review) on getting it to featured article status. If any contributor new or old wants to help with that please get involved, so far the article has been improved by many editors. Mujinga (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Carbon Caryatid: so the peer review has been superhelpful and I think the article is in quite a good state now, I was wondering if you would like to take a look at it and/or do you have any tips for taking it to FAC, since I haven't done that before. Thanks! Mujinga (talk) 21:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

It's good to see the improvements. I've made a few more, where I felt able to. There's one sentence that needs clarifying: "At trial in October 1972, the prosecution case fell apart when police officers contradicted each other an there were disputed accounts of what shoes Morris was wearing, a crucial point since she was accused of kicking an officers." One officer, or plural officers? I take it the first "an" should be "and", but that makes the sentence even baggier. I'll have a think tomorrow about wider issues, and possibly tips. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Wow, nice work. Yes, I'm quite pleased with how much more could be found on her on a deep dive with the help of SusunW. Uggg sorry about the state of that particular sentence! I'll give the article a read now and what I didn't do yesterday but will do right after this is cut n paste it into open office and do a spellcheck to pick up any other errors. So the citation is on the Howe biography, page 173, the relevant bit being: The trial began on 30 October 1972, in Court number 3, with Howe defending himself. The prosecution’s case comprised the testimony of nine police officers. Bizarrely, their case was riddled with inconsistencies. In Morris’s case, there were divergent accounts of her footwear, no trivial matter as she was accused of kicking and injuring an officer. I've changed the sentence a bit, hopefully it reads better now, see what you think. Mujinga (talk) 11:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words, and well done on the deep dive. Is SusunW going to mentor you/us/OM through the FAC? I've had another go, including at that very sentence. (Did the police officers contradict each other or themselves? What was OM wearing on her feet - boots or shoes? The source is ambiguous, so I've re-worded to allow for interpretation.) But also more widely. I've done other things like link to the locations of her schools, as the schools themselves don't have articles. There may be a FA rule against linking parts of proper nouns. I am no FA expert. Let me know if I can help with the wiki-gnoming.Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Picture entitled "The site of Tulse Hill Comprehensive School"!?

Lavender Hill School exists!

Nice work! It's great to be working on this with you and SusunW. I'm not sure if SusunW wants to mentor but she's def helping a lot :) The rephrased shoe sentence reads good to me now. I also have doubts about linking a place as part of a school name; further these names might not be the "real" names despite being listed in the ODNB (which is reliable but not infallible) ...

• "Heathbrook Primary School" is listed at List of schools in the London Borough of Lambeth.
• "Tulse Hill Secondary School" is mentioned at Dread Beat an' Blood but not referenced. Tulse Hill School is boys only and not much else comes up for "Tulse Hill Secondary School", there's nothing at List of schools in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Possibly demolished see pic...
• "Lavender Hill Girls' Secondary School" doesn't turn up much and is not listed at List of schools in the London Borough of Wandsworth, but it does seem to have existed, there's various mentions of it including a "lavender hill girls school" on facebook, it perhaps closed in 1979, but also see foto from 2009, I guess it changed name or something. Oh dear I've spent too much time on this and must get going ! Mujinga (talk) 10:18, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, life must wait haha. So somehow I came across Dick Sheppard School which says "It was founded as the sister establishment to Tulse Hill School for boys and as the Comprehensive alternative to St Martin-In-The-Fields High School for Girls". Confusingly, this BBC article says "Morris went to Lavender Hill Primary School and Dick Sheppard School in Tulse Hill" so I think that solves the "Tulse Hill Secondary School" confusion but not the "Lavender Hill Girls' Secondary School" issue .. Mujinga (talk) 10:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

If Lavender Hill is this says it was on Amies Street. This says it was converted to apartments in 1997 and was originally designed by TJ Bailey. Which links to this which shows it was built in 1842? as a day school, boarding school, and teacher training school by Bailey. This gives more details, as does this but which I cannot access. In 1966 it was combined with other schools and they began talking about closing it in 1977 and apparently did that in 1979. And it is now this, which finally sealed it for me because it links all the other sources I found for Clapham, Battersea, Wandsworth, etc. which to a non-Brit make it seem like the references were to different schools in different places. I don't think we have an article on anything, but there are lots of references to it. SusunW (talk) 20:28, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Damn, a four bed apartment in the former school for over £4 million .. that wouldn't please Olive Morris! Mujinga (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

You made me laugh out loud! Totally agree, she would've hated that. SusunW (talk) 18:46, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

OK I've made the note on the schools now :) Mujinga (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Now submitted to FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Olive Morris/archive1 Mujinga (talk) 13:47, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I have emailed Remembering Olive today with copies to Fawcett Society, Blackpast.org and the National Archives to ask if they could tell "Women in Red" whether they have a rights free picture of Olive. Victuallers (talk) 08:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that, the previous discussion on images is archived at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Olive_Morris/archive1#Pix Mujinga (talk) 10:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Mike McColgan

Her relationship with Mike McColgan gets a passing mention. He was an activist too and they were together from the mid 70s until her death - his obituary has a few more details

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/feb/02/michael-mccolgan-obituary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.106.99 (talk) 08:05, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Black/White vs black/white

@Mujinga and Thorpewilliam: just putting a note here, so that the Mujinga, the main article contributor understands the change that has been made. According to MOS:RACECAPS, it seems we should either capitalise both Black and White, or lowercase them (black and white). Thorpewilliam has decided to lowercase black, but it you instead decide to make Black and White both be capitalised, then let me know and I'll update the FA template accordingly. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:18, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I gave some explanation for my choice to make both lowercase (as opposed to uppercase, which I think is rather less common) in the edit description. Cheers, thorpewilliam (talk) 10:22, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent

Please note that the correct spelling of the group is “Organisation”. This can be seen on contemporary material produced by the OWAAD, such as this, this and this.

I changed the spelling earlier today to get rid of “organizer” (and variants) as this was a fairly recent introduction. It has been spelled with an S until January this year, with no reason to change. Per ENGAVR and RETAIN I’ve returned this spelling, particularly given the organisation name is also spelled with an S. 2A00:23C7:2B86:9801:B980:BF75:4A13:75CC (talk) 22:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Sabarr Books

Hi @Mujinga: As you are on the top editors of the page, I ask my question to you. I'm one of the French traductors of the page and I see that there's no link or source for Sabarr Books (in the first paragraph of the article). I don't know who this person is and I don't find anything on this person on the internet. Do you have any pieces of information ?

Thank you Douteoublié (talk) 13:43, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Douteoublié that's awesome you are translating this page into French!! Sabarr Books was not a person, it was a radical bookshop. In the article itself you can find this sentence: "Sabarr Bookshop was set up by a group of local black men and women that included Morris and through it, activists were able to work with schools to provide black history reading materials for a more diverse curriculum.[11]: 75 [34]: 181". From those references you can find more details about it, although information is quite scarce. Hope that helps, feel free to ask if you have any other questions. Mujinga (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

CPGB

Hi The History Wizard of Cambridge, I've removed the "see also" links you added. My rationale is that whilst the people you added appear to be connected with each other through being black CPGB members, Morris was not a CPGB member. As far as I can see they didn't interact with Morris at all and they didn't live in London (Brixton). So I think the connection is tenuous. If they are connected to Morris, then that's great and we can add something about it in the text and link from there. Mujinga (talk) 08:41, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

The mention of the CPGB was just being descriptive. Most of the people I listed were, like Olive Morris, Black Caribbean born communists who emigrated to the UK and became active in large English cities during the latter half of the 20th century and headed campaigns against racism. As far as I know, none of them directly interacted with Morris, otherwise I would have added that to the body.

This is actually a funny coincidence because I had meant to contact you tonight to tell you that your work in improving the Olive Morris page was the inspiration for me to work on the Trevor Carter page and work on it becoming my first GA article. If you are interested, I'm looking for people to take a look at the Billy Strachan wiki, which I am hoping will someday become my first Featured Article. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Hiya yes I can see how the others link together in that way, but for me Olive Morris is more linked to for example Gerlin Bean, who was a participant in the Black Liberation Front, the Brixton Black Women's Group, and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent.

Oh thanks for saying that you were inspired by the work I put in taking Olive Morris to FA, that's very kind. I was lucky that everyone who gave comments and otherwise helped out was so friendly. My time on wikipedia is a bit limited currently but I'll try to take a look at Billy Strachan soon. Cheers, Mujinga (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2023 (UTC)