Current student awarded the Barbara Savage Prize

It was a real honour to be awarded the Barbara Savage Prize in Black history for my undergraduate thesis entitled 'OWAAD is all of us': Unity and the politics of identity in the Black British women's movement, 1978-1984. The Barbara Savage Prize was established last year and is named for Professor Barbara Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania and Harmsworth Visiting Professor of Black History at Oxford in 2018.

The idea for my thesis came from a personal desire to develop my own understanding of feminism rooted in an intersectional perspective. Throughout my degree, I found myself drawn to gender history and theory. I was also keen to explore the liberation movements of 1968 and beyond, a desire which came out of my interests in post-war British history and liberationist politics. 

Once I began my initial research, it became obvious that the women I should centre my dissertation on were Black women. I quickly came across the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Decent (OWAAD): a London-based umbrella organisation of Black women's groups in operation between 1978-1983.

OWAAD represented just one chapter in a history of Black British women organising on their own terms. For these women in the late seventies and early eighties, intersectionality seemed an obvious and practical way of articulating and advancing their personal and political project. They did not use the word intersectional, however (it was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989). Rather, they drew on their own experiences as women who were Black and poor; indeed, as a group who were poor precisely because they were Black women.

Yet while Black women's groups preceded and followed OWAAD, this national network only lasted a few years. As OWAAD came to an end, many activists lamented the fact it had dissolved so early. Others voiced their concerns over the tensions along racial and sexual lines which came with the organisation's promise of unity. These activists included those of Asian descent who united with women of African and Afro-Caribbean descent under the political term 'Black', and the Black lesbian women who became prominent in the organisation despite its avoidance of discussion of sexuality. While their memories were very real, I felt that many historians had uncritically used these accounts to support a wider narrative of failure and demise.  

I structured my dissertation as a chronological retelling of OWAAD and Britain's Black women's movement from a new perspective. In Chapter One, 'Black women unite', I challenged the assumption that Black women organised as a reaction against their supposed marginalisation by the white-dominated Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), arguing instead that Black women activists united around their own well-established movement. In Chapter Two, 'A national Black women's movement', I argued that their movement achieved widespread success because of its unity and ambition. I did so by analysing OWAAD's first and second Black Women's Conferences - the first of their kind in Britain - concluding that, through these events, activists forged a cohesive, national network of Black women's groups. 

In narratives of OWAAD's 'rise and fall', the third and fourth conferences cemented its demise. In Chapter Three, 'Cracks in the collective', I explored themes including the abuse directed towards Black lesbian attendees of the third conference and the disarray of the fourth and final conference. In Chapter Four, however, I sought to reassess OWAAD's supposed 'fall' or 'demise' by comparing activists' memories to archival material to illuminate new meanings. What stood out as vital considering OWAAD's end were the effects of the trauma of the 1981 New Cross Fire and subsequent Brixton uprisings, as well as the experiences of activists balancing such an ambitious political project against the demands of their personal lives. 

Moreover, I was conscious of my whiteness while researching and writing my thesis, and conscious of my whiteness when I was awarded the Barbara Savage Prize. With the limitations of my own perspective in mind, it was important for me to anchor my thesis within the voices of Black women. 

Many activists of the time are still very much active today. One such activist is Stella Dadzie, co-founder of OWAAD, co-author of foundational text The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain (1985) and author of a new book, A Kick in the Belly (2020). When I began researching Dadzie's work, I came across a wealth of interviews and webinars available online, made possible amid a wave of interest in Black British history following the shocking murder of George Floyd by US police; events moving online due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and the fact that Dadzie was picking up interviews and events in promotion of her new book.

Listening to Dadzie's accounts over the months before I sat down to write my thesis was illuminating. Not only did her insights provide the framework for a new perspective on OWAAD centred on unity and ambition, her memories allowed for an exploration of how activists at the heart of the Black women's movement have constructed and shaped memories of it in the years since its end. 

Black British history has a story which we all should listen to and learn from. Oxford evidently has a long way to go in fully acknowledging and exploring its racist past and becoming truly inclusive and equal. Across 2018, 2019 and 2020, just 251 UK-domiciled students of Black African or Black Caribbean heritage were admitted to Oxford. Across the same three years, just 7 UK-domiciled students of Black African or Black Caribbean heritage were admitted to St John's. Meanwhile, there is no Oxford History paper dedicated to Black British history.

There have been positive developments at St John's: for example, the St John's and the Colonial Past project led by Dr Mishka Sinha. Equally, it's clear that there is so much more work to be done. Learning from our past is just one step in changing things for the better.