Director of NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program to Speak at Dickinson College

Environmental Racism in the Age of Climate Change

by Leda Fisher '19

Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, Jacqueline Patterson, will discuss how environmental racism in the U.S. causes climate change-related disasters to disproportionately harm already disadvantaged populations. The talk, “Environmental Racism in the Age of Climate Change,” will be held Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium.

Patterson will discuss how social and historical factors forced people of color into neighborhoods and communities that are more likely to be exposed to pollutants and harmful chemicals and are more at risk in natural disasters, which, she argues, are occurring much more often due to climate change.

In addition to her role at the NAACP, Patterson has worked as coordinator and cofounder of Women of Color United since 2007. She has also served as a senior women’s rights policy analyst for ActionAid, assistant vice-president of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health and as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity; the Churchill Fund; the departments of American studies, sociology and Africana studies; the program in policy studies; the Women’s & Gender Resource Center and the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM). This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Learn more

• Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
• Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity
• The Women's & Gender Resource Center
• The Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring
• Department of American Studies
• Department of Sociology
• Department of Africana Studies
• Program in Policy Studies
• Latest News

Published September 19, 2018