Intersectional climate activist Jacqui Patterson received the Earth Award, honoring leaders working to advance climate justice, on Tuesday evening during the 2024 TIME Women of the Year gala in West Hollywood.
Patterson is the founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, which helps connect Black communities that are being disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis with the resources they need to create systematic change across connected challenges.
Patterson is the founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, which helps connect Black communities that are being disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis with the resources they need to create systematic change across connected challenges.
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00:00 Hi. I believe and I know that we can all agree on this, that it is our responsibility to take care of our beautiful planet,
00:09 not only for future generations, but for every single person who's alive today,
00:14 and specifically for the communities who are living on the front lines of environmental impact.
00:19 I'm here to recognize the work of an astounding woman who has tirelessly championed people
00:26 who face an unjust burden of risk and complication because of our climate crisis.
00:31 I'm genuinely honored to be here to recognize her, the Time Earth Award winner, Jackie Patterson,
00:37 because Jackie's simple yet revolutionary approach to her nonprofit organization
00:42 has focused on helping marginalized communities that have been hit disproportionately hard by climate change
00:48 by taking on the systemic issues that have left them more exposed.
00:52 It's an uncomfortable conversation and topic for a lot of people to think about
00:56 because many of us may know what is happening with our Earth due to our choices,
01:01 but we haven't had to face the dire consequences or witness the repercussions of those choices ourselves
01:07 or how they impact our communities, our families, our children.
01:11 But it doesn't mean it's not happening every day throughout this country, throughout the world.
01:15 And whereas bigger nonprofits largely take on single issues,
01:20 Jackie's organization, the Chisholm Legacy Project, takes on an intersectional approach.
01:25 They understand that we cannot speak of the climate crisis without addressing poverty,
01:30 racial discrimination, and gender inequality,
01:33 all of which combined pose enormous challenges for at-risk communities.
01:38 The Chisholm Legacy Project connects black communities with the resources they need
01:42 to make change and actualize their vision for the future.
01:46 They make sure that communities that have been historically marginalized, invisibilized, and forgotten
01:51 never fall through the cracks again, that their children and their families
01:55 have the basic human right to clean and safe water, air, food, and energy, just like all of us do.
02:02 I cannot stress enough how fortunate we all are to be here with Jackie today.
02:06 This is the work that we're going to look back on in 100 years
02:09 and recognize how it actually moved the needle in our protection of this planet
02:14 and our fellow brothers and sisters, again, who are alive today, not just in the future.
02:20 It is my honor to welcome a 2024 Time Woman of the Year and Earth Award honoree, Jackie Patterson.
02:27 [applause]
02:38 Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
02:41 I think we're supposed to--
02:44 Oh, we're supposed to take a photo.
02:46 Thank you.
02:48 So, I guess--
02:50 Okay.
02:52 [laughter]
02:54 [inaudible]
02:56 Oh, okay.
02:58 [laughter]
03:00 Congratulations.
03:02 So, thank you.
03:04 [applause]
03:06 Thank you. Thank you.
03:08 I just want to say a few words.
03:09 So, I just wanted to thank so much to Time Magazine for this dual award.
03:13 I want to thank Justin Worland, who's on the Time Magazine staff, for making the recommendation.
03:18 [applause]
03:19 I also want to thank my nephew, Che, who's here.
03:21 He's a music student and a budding music talent agent
03:26 and is named after the revolutionary Che Guevara, and so it's such a blessing to have him with me.
03:32 I give honor and praise to all the co-awardees for the amazing contributions that you've made
03:37 to impact the areas of pay equity, peace, health, sports, human rights, the arts, and more.
03:43 I'm so very honored to stand among you.
03:45 I'm also honored to stand with the other people who are not here with us today.
03:50 I think about what it takes to get here.
03:53 I remember 10 years ago, I was walking into a conference space during the lunch hour
03:57 when everyone had left for break, and after I had traveled all morning,
04:01 I walked in and I saw the snack counter, and I saw my favorite cheat drink, which was grape soda.
04:06 So I made a beeline for the table, only to be stopped by a woman who said to me
04:10 in a tone that was dripping with censure, "This is the meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Attorneys."
04:17 She was clearly convinced that this greedy-eyed black woman was in the wrong place,
04:21 and she was determined to block me from my quarry.
04:24 But I just cheerily said, "Great, I'm in the right place.
04:27 I'm the keynote speaker for the after-luncheon panel."
04:31 [applause]
04:34 Thank you.
04:36 So she started to sputter her apologies at that point,
04:40 and I just gave her a tolerant look that said, "I see you, lady, but it's okay."
04:45 So then I went on and grabbed my grape soda.
04:47 But when the people returned from break and I saw the nearly completely homogenous group that was in the room,
04:53 I understood why she made such an assumption, and I called her in during my remarks later on.
04:59 But not to be bested by the time when a lady thought that I was a security guard at the Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh,
05:06 even though I was wearing a cocktail dress like this one,
05:09 just because I was standing in the vicinity of the security stand.
05:13 And ironically, there I was hosting this event,
05:16 the inaugural gathering of the Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector Initiative,
05:20 which I had founded.
05:22 [applause]
05:24 And then there was another time and another time and so on and so on.
05:27 I can give you many examples, but I only have three minutes.
05:29 So the good news is that we've made some progress since then.
05:32 There are so few of us who are occupying key spaces at that time,
05:36 but now we have much more people in the foreground.
05:40 But I want to lift up some of these luminaries who are occupying these spaces.
05:46 I share this award with less visible sisters who are true heroines,
05:50 who inspire me every single day with their transformational work on the front lines of environmental and climate justice
05:56 as tenders, as stewards, and as defenders of the earth.
06:00 Led by sisters such as Casey Camp Hornick,
06:03 I uplift the indigenous sister who called out the unholy matrimony between the oil and gas industry
06:08 and the elected officials.
06:10 She stood in front of the State House in Colorado holding a sign that said,
06:14 "Frack you, you fracking frackers."
06:17 I also applaud the sisters who called out the fossil fuel industry atrocities,
06:22 women from the Ogoni women of Nigeria to the Inuit sisters in Alaska
06:27 who boarded kayaks, putting their bodies on the line, shouting, "Shell no!"
06:31 as they blocked the ships of oil companies carrying their cargo,
06:36 which was actively harming people and planet.
06:38 All praises to awesome sisters like Rochelle Ozein of Lake Charles, Louisiana,
06:43 who led the efforts to block the Calico Pass, a liquefied natural gas facility.
06:48 Sisters like Destiny Watford of Curtis Bay in Baltimore, who at 17 led the successful effort
06:54 to block the building of one of the largest incinerators in the nation that would have been in her backyard.
06:59 Esther Calhoun and Sheila Orsted, who advanced the efforts around
07:04 blocking the pollution from landfills in their backyard.
07:07 Monica Lewis-Patrick and Deborah Taylor of We the People of Detroit,
07:11 advancing equitable policies around water access.
07:15 Roz Myers, a retiree from the labor movement, who meets food apartheid head-on in her community
07:21 in Sacramento by planting and tending dozens of gardens in the backyards of neighbors
07:26 who wouldn't be able to do it for themselves.
07:28 And so many more than I can name again in the three minutes.
07:31 They are my inspiration. They're my hope.
07:33 And they are proof positive of the words that we should all live by.
07:36 Words such as those spoken by Amanda Gorman, the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate,
07:43 whose words of wisdom are now banned in a certain state that shall remain nameless.
07:48 But she says, "There is always light if only we are brave enough to see it,
07:53 if only we are brave enough to be it."
07:55 So, thank you all.
07:57 [applause]