Black History – Manchester Historian

Olive Morris had attended the Victoria University of Manchester to pursue her degree in social and economic science. She studied there for three years, from 1975 to 1978. During the three years she co-founded two groups, the Black Women’s Mutual Aid Group, and the Manchester Black Women’s Co-operative, working alongside Elouise Edwards and Kath Locke. Whilst here in Manchester, she also campaigned for the eradication of tuition fees for overseas students.

In an English Literature Modernism module somewhere inside a Science Faculty building on Oxford Road in 2022, we are being asked to consider how much the Harlem Renaissance was a modernist movement. My lecturer notes that the likes of T.S Eliot, James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield were exiles from their home countries. By choice, they left their birthplaces. Their writing grapples with questions of rejecting and embracing identity. It is non-traditional and novel work.

Contemporarily, we often learn of identities through mainstream media and popular culture. Being black, you soon realise the restricted identities the media portray you as are simply inadequate. Black men are aggressive, Black women are angry, and the only way we can rise to the top is through the sport and entertainment industries. But where else can we go to find ourselves? Be encouraged to keep going when all odds seem to be against us?