Jacqueline Patterson

Jacqueline Patterson is the Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Programme and coordinator and co-founder of Women of Color United. She works as a global women’s rights consultant, researcher, program manager, coordinator, and activist on issues of women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV/AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. Jacqueline serves on the Advisory Committee for the Grandmother Project, the Steering Committee of the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change, the Board of Directors for the Institute of the Black World and the US Climate Action Network, the Executive Committee for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Alumni Network, and the Coordination Team of the Gender Justice Working Group of the US Social Forum. Previously, Jacqueline served as a Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid, where she worked to build a women’s rights lens on issues of food rights, macroeconomics, and climate change, as well as on the intersection of HIV/AIDS and violence against women. Jacqueline is the author of many powerful publications, including “Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue,” “Gulf Oil Drilling Disaster: Gendered Layers of Impact,” “Disasters, Climate Change Uproot Women of Color,” and “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events,”. She 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.