Tune in to WOL 1450 AM, 95.9 FM and WOL Live Stream on February 23 at 10:30 am EST for Everything Co-op, hosted by Vernon Oakes. Everything Co-op continues its commemoration of Black History Month with an interview of attorney Renee C. Hatcher. Vernon and Renee will discuss how she has used law as a vehicle of resistance.
Renee Hatcher is a solidarity economy lawyer. She is an Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Community Enterprise and Solidarity Economy Law Clinic at UIC Law, a legal clinic that provides free legal support to grassroot organizations, cooperatives, and other solidarity economy enterprises. Daughter of the late civil rights activist and first elected Black mayor of a U.S. city, Richard Gordon Hatcher, Renee is committed to advancing the Black Freedom Movement through her work with co-ops and communities.
Renee is a member of the leadership team for the Black Abolitionist Solidarity Economy (BASE) Fellowship, and a member of Law for Black Lives Movement Lawyering Squad. Renee also serves as a board member for the New Economy Coalition and the Detroit Justice Center. Prof. Hatcher is the Co-Director of the newly minted Solidarity Economy Law & Policy Initiative at the UIC Center of Urban Economic Development.
The 2023 theme for Black History month is Black Resistance. The theme explores how âAfrican Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial profiling, and police killings.â As societal and political forces escalate to limit access to and exercise of the ballot, eliminate the teaching of Black history, and work to push our country back into the 1890s, we can only rely on our capacity to resist. Renee is certainly a woman who shows her commitment to resistance.