Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of The Chisholm Legacy Project (TCLP). TCLP’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to connect Black frontline communities with the resources to actualize visions.
Prior to the launch of TCLP, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she led a team in designing and implementing a robust portfolio including serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice through political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Working with frontline communities from Kampala to Kalamazoo to Kingston, 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 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, Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, and the Hive Fund for Gender and Climate Justice, on the Governance Assemblies for Mosaic Momentum, and Collectrify, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Bill Anderson Fund, Emerald Cities Collaborative, Movement Strategy Center, the Just Solutions Collective, the National Black Workers Center Project, and Ceres.
In March 2024, Patterson was honored to be named as one of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year as well as receiving the Time Magazine Earth Award.
