Patrick Philip Vernon was born on 1961 and is a British social commentator and political activist of Jamaican heritage, who works in the voluntary and public sector.
22 Facts About Patrick Vernon
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Patrick Vernon is a former Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hackney.
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Patrick Vernon's career has been involved with developing and managing health and social care services, including mental health, public health, regeneration and employment projects.
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Patrick Vernon is an expert on African and Caribbean genealogy in the UK.
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Patrick Vernon was appointed a Clore Fellow in 2007, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours for "services to the Reduction of Health Inequalities for Ethnic Minorities", and in 2018 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
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Patrick Vernon was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, to Norris and Avis Vernon, who had migrated to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s.
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Patrick Vernon traced his lineage as far back as the 1800s, to a village in Senegal called Kedougou.
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Patrick Vernon grew up in the All Saints and Penn Fields areas of Wolverhampton, attending Grove Junior School, Colton Hills, and Wulfrun College, before going on to study law at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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Patrick Vernon initially worked in health and social care, where he was a manager for Citizens Advice Bureau and a civil servant at the Department of Health and Local Government Association.
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Patrick Vernon later served as director of the Brent Health Action Zone, and Regional Director for charity MIND.
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Patrick Vernon later worked in the third sector for a number of organisations focussing on the mental health of refugees, immigrants and prisoners.
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Patrick Vernon was associate member for the Department of History of Medicine at Warwick University, an advisory board member for the mental health campaign Time To Change, and a former ministerial adviser for mental health.
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Patrick Vernon was a member of the independent Metropolitan Police inquiry on Mental Health and Policing.
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In 2002, Patrick Vernon founded Every Generation Media to develop education programmes, publications and films on cultural heritage and family history, with the Every Generation website becoming one of the main sites on family history for African and Caribbean communities in Britain.
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Patrick Vernon was among the first to call for the national celebration of "Windrush Day" on 22 June, to recognise the migrant contribution to UK society, marking the day in 1948 when the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, bringing the first big group of post-war migrants from the West Indies to Britain.
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Patrick Vernon was appointed an OBE in 2012, in recognition of his work to promote health equality for Black and minority ethnic communities.
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In May 2018, following his earlier campaign for Windrush Day and his 2013 petition to the British government, Patrick Vernon relaunched a petition asking the Prime Minister to recognise 22 June as a national day to commemorate and celebrate migration and migrant communities in Britain.
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Patrick Vernon featured on the August 2020 cover of British Vogue as one of 20 activists "ready to change the world".
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Patrick Vernon played a pivotal role in obtaining a Blue Plaque in memory of British immigrant rights activist Paulette Wilson, a member of the Windrush Generation.
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Patrick Vernon served for eight years as a Labour councillor for the Queensbridge ward in the London Borough of Hackney, stepping down in May 2014, when the ward was abolished.
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Patrick Vernon was appointed as chair of the Labour Party's Race Equality Advisory Group in December 2015.
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In 2015, Patrick Vernon was caught up in controversy after he asserted that the design of the flag of the Black Country, which features a chain motif, was offensive and insensitive.