REEM GVL announces new Program Manager, Courtney Hicks

Greenville’s Racial Equity and Economic Mobility Commission (REEM) welcomes Courtney Hicks as the new Program Manager. As the former Outreach and Public Programming Coordinator at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, Courtney brings a level of community centered expertise that propels the mission of REEM and the goal of fighting for equity and improved quality of life for all Black Greenville residents.

Hicks’s passion for black liberation and opportunity started in 2015 during her matriculation at the College of Charleston. Following the Mother Emmanuel Massacre, she developed a passion for creating safe spaces for black collegiate-level students and advocating for changes that affected their quality of life. Within this passion, she created a natural hair empowerment organization, Collegiate Curls, that spanned 14 campuses across the US with the goal of propelling students to advocate for productive change by centering one unifying element, hair.

While at the Avery Research Center, Hicks developed over 200 programs and initiatives that directly impacted the greater Charleston Community, focusing on Black Gullah Geechee folk. With the disparities being so great, Hicks created impactful relationships with other community groups and organizing collectives that focused on providing temporary and permanent solutions for the five key racial disparities that the Center focused on: income, gentrification and housing, educational attainment, health and environmental hazards, and crime and policing. Aside from her professional work, Hicks’s passion for community support and liberation for all Black people influenced her development of The Joseph Floyd Manor Care Package Project, partnerships with Climate Power for Environmental Racism Advocacy, and Organizer with The Charleston Activist Network.

Hicks received her Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies and Communication from the College of Charleston where she is a recipient of the Lucille Whipper Award and her Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certificate from Stanford University.

We invite you to join us in welcoming Courtney Hicks to the REEM GVL team along with learning more about REEM’s progress in highlighting the path forward at our Community Reception.

This event will be held on April 10, 2023, from 5:00-7:00 P.M. at the Children’s Museum of the Upstate