Tune into WOL 1450 AM, 95.9 FM or the WOL Livestream on Thursday, March 13 at 10:30 a.m. EDT for Everything Co-op, hosted by Vernon Oakes. Everything Co-op continues its Women’s History Month series this week under the theme, “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating and Inspiring Generations.”

This episode features cooperative advocates Stacey Sutton, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Urban Planning and Policy; and Assata Richards, founding director of the Sankofa Research Institute. Stacey and Assata will discuss the components required for building a solidarity economy and share their research findings related to social and economic justice.

ICA’s 2025 General Assembly is part of week of co-op festivities in Manchester and Rochdale

This week on Everything Co-op, E. Kim Coontz on educating and inspiring future generations

Stacey Sutton co-directs the Solidarity Economy Research, Policy & Law Project, which serves as the hub for the City of Chicago’s Community Wealth Building Ecosystem. This initiative promotes local, democratic and shared ownership of community assets to create more sustainable and just economies. Her research focuses on solidarity economy, economic democracy and racial equity. Sutton is also a member of the New Economy Coalition’s Board of Directors, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, and a Senior Researcher with the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network. She is currently working on a book called “Real Black Utopias,” which explores Black-centered worker cooperatives and solidarity economy ecosystems in U.S. cities. Sutton holds a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University, an MBA from New York University, a master’s degree from The New School for Social Research and a joint Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Sociology from Rutgers University. Her extensive involvement in various organizations underscores her commitment to social justice and economic democracy.

Assata Richards is the founding director of the Sankofa Research Institute (SRI), a nonprofit with a mission to “create knowledge to build community” through community-based participatory research. In addition, as a public sociologist, Richards serves as board president of the newly-formed Houston Community Land Trust, the Third Ward Cooperative Community Builders, and the Emancipation Economic Development Council. Most recently, she was elected as the founding board president of the Community Care Cooperative, Houston’s first homecare agency owned by caregivers and the nation’s first community health workers’ cooperative business. Lastly, she is a founding member of We Are The Ones, a cooperative working to build a “Black Solidarity Economy,” enabling community members to define what success is for them and hold accountable institutions that claim to act on their behalf and develop economic enterprises that fairly compensate workers and build community wealth.