After her friend Olive Morris was assaulted by police in 1969, Bryan joined her in the civil rights group. Then she decolonised her classroom – and contributed to a groundbreaking book
In the mid-60s, Beverley Bryan was a prefect at Lavender Hill secondary modern in south London. One of her responsibilities was to stand at the school gates and scribble down the name of any student who was late. One such girl was Olive Morris, who would become one of the country’s leading anti-racism activists. Bryan, meanwhile, would follow in the younger girl’s footsteps, becoming a British Black Panther, a founder member of the Brixton Black Women’s Group and, in 1985, the co-author of the seminal book The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain – which helped educate generations of women about the struggles and triumphs of Black women in Britain.
“She was always very fierce,” Bryan says, over a video call from her home in Jamaica, of her friend Morris, who died in 1979. “She was always a strong person, a strong personality.” Bryan and Morris had much in common – both were born in Jamaica before emigrating to London as young children – and they quickly became friends who reminisced with a laugh about their early dispute.
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