Tenille Patterson Announces Departure from PJI

What does liberation mean to you?

When I joined PJI six years ago, I was not on a path to liberation. Sure, I was committed to equity and justice and diversity and inclusion, but liberation?! Getting free?! That wasn’t in my line of sight.

So when our racial equity coach posed this question during one of our sessions, I was stumped. Perhaps that was because I was distracted by the fight for the bare minimum—equity. Or because fighting can consume the energy you need for imagining a world you’ve never seen.

Maybe I didn’t even know that I wasn’t free.

At the end of 2023, I will be transitioning from my role as Co-Executive Partner of PJI. My time here has been filled with the triumphs and challenges that come with leading. Particularly, co-leading a historically white organization as its first Black executive. This first comes with an untenable portion of mental, physical, and spiritual labor that should not exist in perpetuity.

And while I am proud of all the disruption, change, and progress I’ve spearheaded during my time at PJI; cumulatively, I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life leading organizations fighting systems and its orchestrators for justice. And nothing stops your imagination like exhaustion.

My search for my personal liberation has led me to amazing discoveries. The role of self. The existence and dreams of my ancestors. My birthright of rest. The way my spirit is fed in community.

Being authentically and wholly engaged in PJI’s racial equity journey has changed my life. So much so, that I know liberation for me means letting go. Ending my fight for justice and equity. Shifting my creative and manifesting energies towards liberation.

So first, I will rest my body and soul. And then I will dream. And forever, I’ll be working alongside visionary Black leaders who are the curators and designers of a future where we’re all free.

Until liberation,
Tenille

“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” —The Combahee River Collective