Earth Week Keynote Address

Co-Sponsored by World Affairs Council of Central Illinois, UIS Campus Senate Committee on Sustainability, and NPR Illinois / 91.9 UIS

As the Director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, Jacqueline Patterson works with community leaders in the United States and around the world to address climate change as a human and civil rights issue. Research demonstrates that climate change does not and will not affect all communities equally. People of color, low income communities, and women are more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Patterson will discuss why climate change is an important human and civil rights issue, and she will explain how the NAACP is working to empower community leaders to address the causes of climate change, rectify its impacts, and advance a global society that fosters sustainable, cooperative, regenerative communities.

Jacqueline Patterson is the Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007 Patterson has served as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United. Jacqui Patterson has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate and activist working on women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV&AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. 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 International Committee of the US Social Forum, the Steering Committee for Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Advisory Board for Center for Earth Ethics as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, Center for Story Based Strategy and the US Climate Action Network. She also served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica, West Indies.