In 1971 at the age of 4, I moved with my family from Pennsylvania to Washington, DC. My family was forced to leave our home in Pennsylvania because the KKK burned a cross in our yard because we were a black family living in a white-only neighborhood. Immediately after this terrifying incident, my mother, Barbara Patterson, told my father, Bill Patterson, that she wanted to move to a black city - and in 1971, Washington, DC was definitely that – it was 89% black. I arrived in my new city and home with my parents, a sister, and our two family dogs.

DC turned out to be everything my mother hoped. My family lived on 3rd & Madison Street NW 20011, where we thrived individually and as a family. My two sisters and I attended independent schools and went on to undergraduate and graduate school. I graduated from Marymount University and American University – Washington College of Law. My father worked as an engineer, and my mother was the President of the Black Student Fund, a beloved DC non-profit that provides scholarships to black k-12 students who attend independent schools. I followed in my mother’s footsteps and work for an educational non-profit, the United Negro College Fund, as Director, Corporate & Foundations Relations.