From Texas to the Global African Diaspora: Just Transitions with Jacqui Patterson, Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year

Jacqui Patterson, Asher Miller, Resilience.org

Jacqui Patterson has worked at the intersection of social justice, the climate crisis, and the well-being of Black communities for decades, including more than 10 years running the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. In 2024 she was named one of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year for what it calls her “revolutionary approach to climate justice.”

In this conversation with Post Carbon Institute Executive Director Asher Miller, Jacqui talks about the plight of Black communities like Sandbranch, Texas, which led her to launch the Chisholm Legacy Project. (Shirley Chisholm – the first Black Congresswoman and first Black Presidential candidate in US history – was famous for her folding chair approach: if you’re not given a seat at the table, bring your own folding chair.) 

Jacqui also explains what it means to have a “just transition,” talks about the commonality of Black communities across the African diaspora, and shares what’s shifted in her understanding of the global polycrisis in the five years since she and Asher first met – at a small gathering of social justice and sustainability thought leaders on the topic of “navigating the Great Unraveling.”

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Photo credit: Environmental Change and Security Programs, via Yale Climate Connections (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Photo credit: Environmental Change and Security Programs, via Yale Climate Connections (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Jacqui Patterson

Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of The Chisholm Legacy Project., which is rooted in a Just Transition Framework and serves as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of The Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She also led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences. She was recently named one of TIME’s 2024 Women of the Year. Since 2007, Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Her passion for social justice led her to serve as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United; Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid; Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica. Patterson has published multiple articles, reports, and toolkits including: “Equity in Resilience Building for Climate Adaptation: An Indicators Document,” “Jobs vs Health: An Unnecessary Dilemma,” “Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue,” “Gulf Oil Drilling Disaster: Gendered Layers of Impact,” “Disasters, Climate Change Uproot Women of Color;” “And the People Shall Lead: Centralizing Frontline Community Leadership in the Movement Towards a Sustainable Planet;” “In the Eye of the Storm,” “Our Communities, Our Power,” “Fossil Fueled Foolery.” She has also authored chapters in two books: “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events” in Building Community Resilience Post-Disaster, as well as “At the Intersections” in All We Can Save. Patterson holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Center for Earth Ethics and the Hive Fund for Gender and Climate Justice, on the Governance Assemblies for Mosaic Momentum, Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, and the Equitable Building Electrification Fund, as well as on the Boards of Directors for