Oscar Abrams

Oscar Abrams (10 March 1937 – 15 February 1996) was a Guyanese architect, theatre designer, community activist and community organiser. He is best known for establishing the Keskidee Theatre Workshop in 1971, the first British brick and mortar Black-led arts centre on Gifford Street in the borough of Islington, London, England. Abrams was the chairman of the Islington branch of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), a community organisation that advocated for decent housing conditions, tenant rights and education rights for Caribbeans who emigrated to the United Kingdom.

Biography Oscar Winston Abrams was born in Guyana and emigrated to London, England, in 1958.

Together with Norma Ashe-Watt (1931–2025), a Trinidad-born friend living in Barnsbury, north London, Abrams formed a local branch of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), an organisation advocating in the 1960s for race relations legislation to address the rights of Black and Asian migrants who were suffering discrimination.

In 1971, Abrams bought a run-down Victorian mission hall in Gifford Street, Islington, near King's Cross, from the Shaftesbury Society for £9000 The motto of the Keskidee Theatre Workshop was: "A community discovering itself creates its own future." This pioneering centre was the only UK space dedicated for Black artists for years. By the late 1970s, it was internationally renowned. Keskidee provided a space for members of the Caribbean Artists Movement,

Death and legacy Abrams died, aged 58, on 15 February 1996, Abrams had said in 1987: "he most outstanding achievement for me personally is the consciousness the Keskidee brought to the black community and groups that subsequently became interested in the arts."

Personal life Abrams was married to charity worker Susanna McKnight (who died in 2017) and the couple had a daughter, Amah-Rose Abrams.