Climate Justice Advocate Named One of TIME’s Women of the Year

Jacqueline Patterson, founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, has been recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 2024 Women of the Year. Her organization, named after the first Black woman elected to Congress, is a resource hub for Black communities facing systemic injustices worsened by environmental problems.

She was inspired to launch the Chisholm Legacy Project in 2021 after visiting the unincorporated town of Sandbranch, Texas, which was founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. While only 11 miles from Dallas, until recently residents lacked running water and burned trash in their backyards, reports TIME writer Justin Worland. “[Patterson] was struck by the weight of the injustice—and by the fact that Sandbranch had slipped between the cracks of the structures that could help, namely big nonprofits.”

“Environmental issues, poverty, racial discrimination, and gender inequality all intersect to create intractable challenges. And often nonprofits bite off just one of those pieces. Patterson’s organization is taking them all on where they intersect. Her approach is at once obvious and revolutionary,” writes Worland. Patterson’s current focus is on advocating for marginalized communities to receive federal climate investment. “Economy, food, housing, transit—all of these are civil rights issues… And climate issues ­intersect with every single one,” she told TIME. “We want to make sure that these communities aren’t continuing to be invisibilized and forgotten.”