The MSC Storytelling Series: Jacqui Patterson
In this installment we get to know researcher, advocate, and activist Jacqueline “Jacqui” Patterson founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project — former director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program; co-founder of Women of Color United; and proud board member of MSC.
“It wasn’t a coincidence, it wasn’t happenstance.” So says Jacqui Patterson — activist, founder of the Chisholm Legacy Project, and MSC board member — on how she made her way to Movement Strategy Center.
She was introduced to MSC through Movement Generation but if it wasn’t that it would’ve been something else: “the universe … draws like-mission and like-spirited people together.” She knew from the beginning there was alignment in work and in mission and it became clearer as Patterson participated in MSC’s movement support work — the Transitions Labs, the facilitation of conversations and meetings, and the cultivation of projects. “There are so many points of resonance and alignment in everything that MSC does … Whether it is the heart of the people … Or the way that they facilitate conversations about collective organizing toward the world that we want, MSC has been an inspiration, a catalyst, and a facilitator of radical imagination and a radical love in action.”
Patterson hails from the southside of Chicago — a very urban place not far from the other, more suburban side of the tracks. Her neighborhood offered many of the great touchstones of city life — ice cream trucks, block parties, and community. But also some of the worst: there were gangs, the sound of gunshots weren’t uncommon, and concerns about her brother simply existing as a Black boy in America were pervasive.
Her family blended two cultures — her mother came up to Chicago during the Great Migration from Dublin, Mississippi; her dad immigrated there from Jamaica. The result was an upbringing steeped in both Deep South and Jamaican influences: a culture of food (collard greens plus curried chicken) and music (rhythm and blues plus reggae). Patterson’s ancestry is in sub-Saharan Africa; her common history involves those ancestors being stolen from their homelands and brought to unceded territories in both the United States and Jamaica to become the enslaved labor behind the economy and the infrastructure of those respective lands.
She says, “I am who I am out of that history and that story. And, I am who I am in celebration of the rich cultural heritage and in resistance to and in reparations from how the heritage and ties to nation and community were interrupted by colonialism. I do what I do to both celebrate and treasure that cultural heritage.”
There are so many points of resonance and alignment in everything that MSC does … Whether it is the heart of the people … Or the way that they facilitate conversations about collective organizing toward the world that we want, MSC has been an inspiration, a catalyst, and a facilitator of radical imagination and a radical love in action.
Her work reflects this. She is working to restore “linkages in some ways to the motherland,” and “address, redress, and correct the carnage and the aftermath of colonialism and where it has left our communities as a result of the systemic exploitation, extraction, and oppression.” The work centers on Black and BIPOC communities all over the world; and is in partnership with all “the aligned and the allied — anyone who is allied and aligned with the mission of Black liberation.”
For her, liberation ensures “that all people have self determination and have what they need to be whole and thriving.” And it starts with accountability — “my purpose is to be in service to the quest for self determination and liberation of Black frontline communities.”
So much of that begins with being very “intentional about who is not even being thought of by those sitting at the table — much less are they even at the table.” In terms of climate justice, Patterson wants everyone to have a seat. Thus, a focus on chronically ignored Freedman’s Settlements — communities, many unincorporated, established by those “just emancipated from enslavement.”
One, a community of only about 100 people outside Dallas, is Sanbranch, Texas. Stunningly, this unincorporated village adjacent to one of our country’s wealthiest cities has never had running water. Their well water was contaminated in the 1980s, and today, residents rely mainly on donated bottled water — not just for drinking, but for cooking and bathing. Stories like these are at the center of the Patterson-founded Chisholm Legacy Project — an organization that connects Black communities on the frontlines with the resources necessary to implement transformation.
It isn’t easy work. And that’s why Patterson so valued the aforementioned Transitions Labs — these safe spaces offered community and reflection. A way to, at least metaphorically, refill your cup. These gatherings also made it clear that “all the work around social justice and systems change is intersectional.” A priceless opportunity “to explicitly be engaged with folks who are doing work from gender justice to education justice to general economic justice and so forth, and to really come together and talk about this notion of Just Transition and this ideal that we want as a society.” She acknowledges the concept “might sound utopian,” but for the frontliners in attendance that discussion and that space is “a necessity in order to survive and thrive as people.”
All the work around social justice and systems change is intersectional.
It can be hard for outsiders to understand what these retreats and workshops were like. Patterson describes them as a chance to step “away from the day to day, the list of deliverables … The nonprofit industrial complex.” Crucially, they offered an opportunity to discuss the roles and purpose of both the individuals and the organizations across various movements in “a space of ideating … Set up to accommodate all learning and being styles.”
Attendees showed up with “a selfless sense of mission, so there was a level of trust and safety there.” And the work — deep conversation and reflection, “the practices: tai chi, somatics, embodiment … Various exercises that got you out of your head and into the culture” — fostered intimate connection. “We can go whole days, weeks, or months without thinking about that larger arc,” so the safe space to simply “think and be” was invaluable and unlike so many other gatherings and workshops.
It was at one of these Transitions Labs in the Redwood Forest — “a generative environment” — that Patterson felt everything sort of gel: her work, her goals, her collaborations with MSC. The activity at hand involved focusing on “developing a seed of an idea and being with people who were like-minded, like-focused, and like-spirited who were also growing their own seeds.” The seed that “began to truly blossom” for Patterson that day — while laying on the floor with her peers and remembering the iconic book the Bridge Called My Back, a collection of radical writings by Black women — involved “work specifically focused on supporting the wellbeing of Black femmes.”
That “unformed dream” turned “into an action plan … That birthed the fourth element of focus of the Chisholm Legacy Project — the focus on Black femme support.” Patterson explained that she had observed the “level of weight on Black femmes in terms of holding so much, our families, our organizations, the movement, in the case of Alabama and Georgia — actual democracy. Yet so often you see our sisters in the struggle are so weighed down by that.”
Sighting stress, premature deaths, and all the ways these weights can negatively manifest in the health of her peers inspired the project’s steadfast support of wellbeing. She believes this concept of “community care, organizational care, movement care — instead of just preaching self care to someone who is always going to put themselves last” is crucial to the future of the movement.
Today, Patterson feels honored to continue to support MSC as a board member, calling the work “a blessing.” Likewise, she values “the opportunity to continue to be in relationship with the innovations team that is doing amazing work,” citing her participation as a founding member of the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners. She looks forward to “continuing to support Climate Innovation’s (soon to be renamed People’s Climate Innovation Center (PCIC)) team” and ensuring “that the communities that we work with — including the Black femme climate justice leaders — are able to connect with and be nurtured by the rich range of offerings that MSC has,” especially in terms of climate resilience planning and training and Black youth leadership development.
And, circling back to the Freedman’s Settlements and towns like Sandbranch, she looks forward to growing “the ways that MSC’s fiscal sponsorship and regranting programs can benefit some of the most marginalized Black communities in the United States.” She continued, “the hope is that MSC and the Chisholm Legacy Project can together support the self determination and liberation of these communities all over the nation.”
She also hopes that others — new friends of MSC, new members of the collective movement ecosystem — get the chance to experience something like MSC’s Transitions Labs. They so deeply and positively affected Patterson and she recalled — with a lot of laughter and a little bit of embarrassment — one opportunity where participants were invited to write letters of appreciation to each other. “Other people maybe wrote one or two and I literally sat there and wrote super sappy love letters to everyone. I was just feeling literally just full of so much love for everyone who participated.”
Women’s History Made Today
Movement Strategy Center Chats with Corrine Van Hook-Turner, Director at Climate Innovation (Soon to be People’s Climate Innovation Center)
It is said that “you can’t be what you can’t see.”
The conversation around representation is often concentrated on the silver screen or the board room. But Movement Strategy Center (MSC) wants to recognize the achievements of women and femmes we work with every day, people we see directly investing in our futures — showing up behind the scenes, serving their communities through youth development and community outreach. They are the ones who will influence the way we live and how future generations live.
We (virtually) sat down with Corrine Van Hook-Turner, a seasoned facilitator and fundraiser who leads the vision and strategy for Climate Innovation (soon-to-be-called People’s Climate Innovation Center) — an MSC anchor project and member of the Movement Strategy Network (MSN). As director, Corinne leads through a lens of racial equity and transformative movement building. We chatted about the women who inspire us, past and present; the fight for climate justice; what she’s learning from today’s youth; and building support for Climate Innovation’s call for an initial investment of $100 million in philanthropic support by Earth Day 2022. Read on for more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MSC: In your email signature, you quote Angela Davis: “you have to act as if it were possible to transform the world radically. And you have to do it all the time.” Safe to say she is a woman you admire — who are some women and femme leaders you look to for guidance, past and present? And what have you learned to be essential leadership qualities from them?
CVHT: Yes! Ms. Angela Davis, for sure. But it’s a long list for me, both in the past and present.
Sometimes when I am asked about Sankofa, which is the West African (Akan people of Ghana) word associated with the proverb “se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates to “go back and fetch,” I think about how you must know where you came from to know where you are going. Reaching to the past to bring forward into the present and future. It is a part of my ancestry.
I’ll start with my grandmothers. On the paternal side, because I grew up with her, and learned from her before she passed, was Ms. Mildred Gardner, the matriarch of our family. Growing up, she provided not just love but so many lessons, and she was able to translate that through her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She met all of my children except for my last daughter … Even just seeing that generational connection was potent, and a lot of that is brought into my leadership … She has left legacies that still exist in the present world, and she was a maker! … My grandmother was known as Lillian Roche as a designer. She designed clothes, and that was her passion as a maker, so in a fundamental sense … We are inherently designers.
Another person is my work-wife, Pandora Thomas, founder of EARTHseed Permaculture Center and Farm and senior fellow at Climate Innovation. Just learning with her about nature-based practice and the connection between all of the beings, human and non-human, has been super powerful. As well as the rest of my team. Jamie Love is new. Tamara Jones, who I have known for a good ten years. And Biana Pillar Verbera, and Sarah Quiroga, who I met through MSC. And Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, who I met through Pandora … These women who are just brilliant, amazing and powerful, and strong and actively embody fierce leadership in their lives every day …
I would also add ancestor Octavia Butler. Before we started talking about dreaming, Afrofuturism, liberation, joy, radical imagination — Black people needed to be able to do that for us to manifest it; Octavia’s Butler’s teachings are a superpower and beyond her time, look at EARTHseed!
I would also say all of the women I’ve learned from and get to be in relationship with, like Colette Pichon Battle … Growing up, I was going to be a lawyer, and I shared that with her, and she is always like “whenever you want to light that fire, it is never too late.” One of Colette’s many superpowers is to make me feel grounded, inspired, and supported.
I appreciate Rosa Gonzalez from Facilitating Power. I can facilitate the way I do by learning from her. And we get to work so closely together. Seceda Grant, who I just met through Solutions Project, is powerful, amazing, and brilliant.
I am thinking about Desire Reggie Williams, who has become a brilliant, bold strategy leader. She is smart, concise, succinct, observant, and aware … And Jessica Tovar from Local Clean Energy Alliance. The reason I know about energy justice and energy democracy is partly because of her fierce leadership …
Ms. Margaret Gordon, cofounder, and co-director of West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project … She saw leadership in me even when others did not. She shows up and commands respect, and I love that. I’ve learned so much from her because she taught me that no one gives us permission; we can assert that for ourselves. She is still dropping the gems in this life to share that with Young Black Climate Leaders.
Among a list of so many others!
MSC: You are surrounded by so many strong women and femmes — ancestors and people in the present. You mentioned that many of these women were powerful, how do they show their power, and what does it feel like?
CVHT: They show it through their deep care and love for who they are, what they do, and the communities they represent: communities of color, Black people, Latin people, which is also part of my ancestry. And Indigenous people across the diaspora — my Indigenous ancestry is Blackfoot and Taino. So in bringing in the culture of who they are, they create a connection that is so inspiring. The expertise they bring is off the charts for this work in terms of solutions, and what liberation, economic justice, and energy justice should look like. When we think about what would be if we were able to achieve a Just Transition, they live it and act in it every day even though we are navigating systems to get there. They make no compromises in their stance and how they show up. There are no apologies needed because of their transparency and authenticity. They are not trying to say all of the right things. They show up in their power with such pride and love in their heart … A quality not everyone has. They are humble, supportive, special, and creative. You can tell it connects to their deep history and story, and they bring that with them … They are all designers and visionaries.
MSC: Thinking about tomorrow’s leaders — has your work in youth development and education influenced the way you think about your time as a young adult? And what have they taught you?
CVHT: The Young Black Climate Leaders refer to us as “yelders” — not relatively young, not quite elders. And they inspired the reference there. I think the pedagogy of practice for how I facilitate is that it is cyclical, iterative, interdependent, and intergenerational. We all have something to teach each other … I’ve been doing youth development work for over 20 years, starting as a young person being a part of youth programming. That constant learning — the learning stance, listening stance, and curiosity are super essential — and being in a space with young people allows for that.
… I am no longer a young person … but there is often an assumption that I am young because I am a vertically challenged person. When it comes from young people, it’s good. When it comes from older people, it can come off as condescending. But the powerful thing of having those experiences allows me to show up better and allows me to look within and around my experience with youth work, so I am not replicating those same things. And it allows me to create that space where young people can feel seen and trusted. Everyone is deserving of respect.
MSC: Shifting a little, What kind of opportunities can we expect from the National Building Performance Standards Coalition?
CVHT: We have been doing deep design work with Facilitating Power and Kapwa Consulting, on how we accelerate government and community collaboration. Each of us was doing work in capacity building as those closest to climate impact are communities of color, and low-income, disabled, and elderly people … We need to build capacity at a community level so communities can show up as partners to the table on policies that will affect them. They should be able to benefit from it … Communities should be our decision-makers. We all approach the work in different roles — philanthropy, facilitating government as actors — we have to be better aligned on how we are doing the work. Often we get disconnected from each other, so how can we come together and how can we as people in the movement show up in better alignment, solidarity, and community with each other? … I always say it is so much more about alignment than agreement for me.
MSC: What is the difference between alignment and agreement?
CVHT: Agreement is about having a dialogue and discussion to arrive at a place that is the same. To feel like you and I are in exchange and we can agree on something … That is something that we can arrive at on our own that a body of people can agree on and not feel like they are compromising their values. In this work, we feel pressured to agree. Because when we think of our decision-making practices and who holds power in our capitalist system, we need to agree with the folks in power to make a change. If that is not something that naturally agrees to your terms … then I don’t think that agreement serves us. It serves as a construct to maintain power and a system to keep the many oppressed. It’s not liberatory for me. That’s why consensus building as a practice is so important.
“Consensus building is like arriving at a place that doesn’t compromise the guiding principles. It allows us to say — as long as it is not disrupting me, my work, who I am accountable to, and I can still see myself where we’ve arrived, even if it’s not how I would do something”
We are so used to these practices of forcing people to agree … We do not dig into why they feel a certain way. Even a unanimous decision pushes your boundaries to get you to agree and not check if that’s part of your belief. In contrast, consensus building is like arriving at a place that doesn’t compromise the guiding principles. It allows us to say — as long as it is not disrupting me, my work, who I am accountable to, and I can still see myself where we’ve arrived, even if it’s not how I would do something — that is consensus building and alignment. It can represent the whole. Conscious building unlocks the dialogue, and that’s how we learn through dialogue and discussion! We do not learn by forced agreement … We are not all the same, and disagreement is inevitable. And that’s okay. I can disagree with someone and align with them at the same time … We as people are different, so it is embracing that difference.
MSC: Kresge’s Environment Program has recognized People’s Climate Innovation Center as a grantee partner with the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT). How do Climate Innovation and IMT share in responsibility and credit in leading the formation of a robust support network to fulfill the Coalition’s commitments?
CVHT: It was about bringing climate equity and justice practitioners together to dial in on our movement’s needs and what we are navigating. We are navigating the flow of resources and making sure that these communities direct them, so they can build their self-determined, community-owned infrastructures to be libratory. How are our movements accountable? That includes intermediaries providing resources to the communities doing the work on the front lines. We need to be better aligned with that in terms of policymaking. So when Climate Innovation got introduced to Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) through a partnership with Upright Consulting, Jermey Hayes, who we work with, asked me if I would be interested in this work. But Climate Innovation is not the building standards expert — IMT is. IMT is on its journey to be movement accountable, so we serve as the equity partner … To create a table for community-led policymaking.
Building performance standards are part of the solution, not the only solution. At the heart of Climate Innovation, we acknowledge the expertise of the climate movement is deep, broad, and fast, and we need to expand where we can to share that expertise. Our contribution is to facilitate and have a practice governed by a community-led organization. IMT gathers the technical partners, and our responsibility is to make sure we are frontline and grassroots accountable …
Climate is not just about buildings — it’s about disability justice, economic systems. I want to think about how building performance helps with employment development and getting off a dirty grid. But we understand that when we insert a solution, we need to ask how that solution impacts those not traditionally brought to the table. We look at the needs then translate that to build performance standards.
If we think about how capital flows across borders, no one bats an eye … But when we think about justice work and philanthropy, we have to beg for funds that belong to us. That is our money. Do not call us to tables without resourcing. We need to move toward that. We know it’s possible.
When we are accountable to our communities from the beginning, we are subverting the top-down paradigm. Communities need to have agency, decision-making power, and resources.
If we think about how capital flows across borders, no one bats an eye. When a concept hasn’t been tested, and people need millions of dollars to learn about something — we don’t ask any questions. But when we think about justice work and philanthropy, we have to beg for funds that belong to us. That is our money. Do not call us to tables without resourcing. We need to move toward that. We know it’s possible. We see millions flying out the door …
We are so busy fighting the bad, but we need people to have the time for world-building and what we are transitioning to. So we can be better prepared and aligned in our power to protect our communities in the best way we know how.
Acting Boldly, Creatively, and Collectively on Climate Change
“As we witness our planet transforming around us we watch, listen, measure … respond.”
This summer, the normally pleasant Pacific Northwest has seen three-digit temperatures while unprecedented heat advisories were in place for 80 million Americans across 20 states. As you’re reading this, 97 large wildfires are scorching over 2,000,000 acres in the United States — creating a cloud of smoke visible from space and affecting air quality as far east as New York City — to say nothing of the flames engulfing parts of Canada, Greece, and elsewhere.
Tornadoes have ravaged the Middle Atlantic. Weather has been so bad in the Midwest that Wisconsin declared a state of emergency. The United Kingdom recorded a hundred year storm, Afghanistan and Germany reported flash flooding, and it’s believed that the Amazon Rainforest is now emitting more carbon than it’s absorbing as a result of both wildfires and controlled burns to clear land for farming and grazing. Songbirds are dying on the east coast; the Gulf of Mexico was literally on fire; and in California — a place ingrained in our collective imagination for lovely weather and a summer state of mind — sewage contaminated beaches, historically snow-capped mountains went bare, and water levels plummeted.
Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),which is the United Nations’ climate science research group, released a new report ahead of the next global climate summit taking place in Glasgow in November. The authors found it “unequivocal” that humanity is behind these catastrophes; and that temperatures will likely rise by at least 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two or three decades — a goalpost that intended to limit (but does not avoid) climate catastrophe. Further, since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years.
It is worth noting that our climate is changing largely at the hands of just a few corporate conglomerates and world superpowers — the United States among them. But every individual everywhere in every region is affected — with Indigenous and low-income communities along with citizens of less industrialized nations poised to bear the brunt of these existential threats.
Climate change is real, it’s already happening, and it’s going to get worse. As we read these reports, see the images of devastation, we also reckon with how our lives — our summer vacations, our bird feeders, our favorite places — are already changing forever. We see how these crises are disproportionately affecting us. Not only displacement and relocation from long-standing communities due to fires, land erosion, and rising sea levels, but children attending schools inadequately equipped to handle rising temperatures.
As BIPOC, women, LGBTQIA, and gender non-confirming leaders, we continue to fight for equal rights and economic justice for all, but we cannot turn a blind eye to the climate and the world. These issues are intersectional. As the environment becomes less hospitable, new challenges — rising sea levels and water and food shortages — will only exacerbate the social injustices we are working so hard to correct.
We may feel fearful but solutions exist. We just need to tap into them. Giving up is certainly not an option — there is too much at stake and doing so only supports the capitalist polluters invested in delayed action. Despite all we have lost, we have so much left to save. We can’t forget to heed the wisdom of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, the communal vision of our movement builders, and those fighting to protect land and promote permaculture and regenerative farming here and around the world.
Let us dare to believe a different way is possible — net-zero emissions, regenerative energy and agriculture, reforestation, and a rejection of constant, unchecked growth to embrace the concept of enough.
In the words of Taj James, one of MSC’s founders, “the only solutions are real solutions. The acceleration of the crisis must unlock our wisdom. No fear. No half measures. No more trying to use the way of thinking that created the crisis to try to solve it. The only way out is healing and reconnection at the root.”
There are solutions and everyone has something to contribute. Individuals can take small steps that lead to collective action. Greta Thunberg, who warns us that “our house is on fire,” was just one kid — she’s now a household name and has the ears of policymakers around the world.
With radical love we encourage you to join us and the MSC ecosystem in working towards a Just Transition — our futures depend on it. We have so much love and respect for our fiscally sponsored partners working in this space. To mention just two: Climate Innovation, an MSC anchor project, and Facilitating Power are working with the NACRP on a workshop series with a focus on building community power through a lens of climate resilience. In addition, we look to the amazing Pandora Thomas — a senior fellow at Climate Innovation and founder and land steward of EARTHseed Permaculture Center and Farm, the first Black-owned permaculture farm in Sonoma County.
As James says: “act boldly, creatively and collectively to defend and protect life. Every second wasted is life lost. Every act of courage is life saved. Be bold. Act now.”