Biden signs bill to name Oxnard post office after local civil rights leader

Five years after the death of Ventura County civil rights leader John R. Hatcher III, Congress has named an Oxnard federal building in his honor.

President Joe Biden signed a bill Tuesday designating the U.S. Postal Service facility at 1961 N. C St. as the John R. Hatcher III Post Office Building.

U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, introduced the bill last year to honor Hatcher, who led the Ventura County NAACP for nearly four decades and rose to national prominence within the organization.

Hatcher’s widow, JoAnne Hatcher, said the honor was “overwhelming.”

His daughter, Stacy Luney, said the honor shows her father's impact, the extent of which her family is still discovering. She said she didn't realize the magnitude of his achievements because growing up in the Hatcher household, "that was normal life."

"He walked through this community like it was something that just needed to be done," Luney said. "It wasn't for special attention. It wasn't for accolades. It was just something that needed to get done."

The name change will be commemorated with a plaque and renaming ceremony within the next few months, according to Brownley's office. The congresswoman had worked with Hatcher prior to his death and wanted to pass the bill within his widow's lifetime. In a statement, she thanked Sens. Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein for their help moving the bill through the Senate.

"John Hatcher left a lasting legacy on our community and I am proud to have spearheaded this effort to designate a post office bearing his name," Brownley said in the statement. "John was deeply passionate about advancing civil rights and a longtime advocate for the Black community across Ventura County, and this is a fitting tribute to John’s life and legacy."

Another of Hatcher's daughters, Regina Hatcher-Crawford, who took over as president of the Ventura County NAACP following her father’s death, said it is her understanding this is the first post office in Ventura County to be named after a Black individual. She said the honor is also notable because it was approved with bipartisan support.

She said her father was a humble man. She speculated that if he were alive for the honor, he would "just smile."

Hatcher was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1932 at the height of the Jim Crow era. His father, John R. Hatcher II, was a civil rights leader who participated in the first chapter of the NAACP there and founded the Democratic Party of Alabama in North Birmingham.

The younger Hatcher continued his father’s legacy of civil rights activism. For eight years, he served as president of the NAACP Southern Area, which covered six states. He moved his family to Oxnard in 1964 and remained in the coastal town until his death in 2017.

Hatcher fought for the removal of a Confederate flag near Ventura Road and pleaded for calm when the KKK came to Oxnard in the late 1970s. He advocated naming an Oxnard school after Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. He also helped establish the Ventura County African-American Chamber of Commerce and the Tri-County Sentry newspaper.

In 2013, CSU Channel Islands awarded Hatcher with the African-American Achievement Award.

Hatcher-Crawford said that her father championed the cause of all underrepresented and oppressed people. She said the first march her father took her to was for farm workers organizing under Cesar Chavez.

"When we talk about 'for the people,' he definitely was for the people," Hatcher-Crawford said. "It was never just a Black or brown or white issue. He was for everybody."

The father of six served in the U.S. Air Force for 22 years before working as a civilian for the U.S. Navy.

JoAnne Hatcher said her husband was, above all, "a family man" who prioritized education and constantly encouraged his 19 grandchildren to read. He was also known to spoil them with ice cream and hamburgers from McDonald's.

Hatcher-Crawford said her father frequented the post office that now bears his name and workers at that location knew him by name.

"What a great legacy John R. Hatcher III left," she said.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Oxnard post office renamed for John Hatcher, local civil rights leader