manchester history – Page 4 – 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.

The transatlantic slave trade, also known as the Euro-American slave trade, was the process by which slave traders transported enslaved Africans to the Americas, mostly through the Caribbean. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, there was a regular slave trade that used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, which lasted until the end of European imperialism.

In 1990, the inmates of Strangeways prison began the longest riot in British penal history. Once revered as a “last bastion of discipline,” the prison stood as the largest penitentiary in England, holding around 900 men at full capacity. By 1990, a peak of over 1,600 prisoners had been confined within its walls, becoming a ‘human warehouse’ with a dangerous guard-to-prisoner ratio. It was the perfect environment for revolt to fester, with cries for justice from disenfranchised men being inevitably ignored. Inmates began to talk of revolt, one specifically, Paul Taylor, who became the ring-leader of such discussions. Taylor was confined in an attempt to silence his protest but paradoxically, it was there he met Alan Lord, the second ring-leader of the riot, and the two began to plan their systemic overthrow.