Patrick Philip Vernon OBE[1] (born 1961)[2] is a British social commentator and political activist of Jamaican heritage, who works in the voluntary and public sector.
Also a film maker and amateur cultural historian, he runs his own social enterprise promoting the history of diverse communities, as founder of Every Generation and the "100 Great Black Britons" campaign.
[5][6] He was appointed a Clore Fellow in 2007,[7] an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for "services to the Reduction of Health Inequalities for Ethnic Minorities",[8] and in 2018 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
[2][19] He grew up in the All Saints and Penn Fields areas of Wolverhampton,[15] attending Grove Junior School, Colton Hills, and Wulfrun College,[20] before going on to study law at Manchester Metropolitan University.
"[28] The campaign received wide coverage in the national print and television media, with Mary Seacole eventually announced as having been voted the greatest Black Briton.
[44] 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.
[50][51] Vernon has claimed that this led to him being "dragged into an online hate campaign after saying that the flag's chain motif represents an image of an industry which profited from the transatlantic slave trade.
"[52] As a film-maker, Vernon's work includes directing and producing A Charmed Life, a documentary about the Caribbean contribution in the UK during World War II, focusing on Jamaican ex-serviceman Eddie Martin Noble.