Third annual Essex gathering honors late activist, furthers conversations about regional racism one year after her death
By David Escobar
Earlier this month, around 40 people gathered on the lawn of a countryside estate overlooking the shore of Lake Champlain in Essex. There was one notable absence.
Alice Paden Green, who had begun the annual gathering three years earlier, passed away shortly after its second installment in August 2024. Despite losing its matriarch, the gathering continued in honor of the late social justice advocate, advancing previous conversations about racism in the Adirondacks.
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Adirondack upbringing
Born in South Carolina, Green and her family moved to the Champlain Valley in 1948. Her father, like many Black men of his generation, left the South to escape racism and seek better opportunities in the North. He found work in Republic Steel’s Witherbee-Sherman iron ore mines, and the family settled in the small hamlet of Witherbee. But in the predominantly white town, Green discovered many of the same racist attitudes her family had hoped to leave behind.
“Black people were treated differently,” Green told the Explorer in 2024. “When someone else, mainly black people, or any other people of color, came into the area, they were considered outsiders.”
Green’s childhood experience became the focus of her 2023 memoir, “Outsider: Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks.” The book, and the community discussions that followed, were sparked in part by Green’s 50th high school reunion, where classmates insisted that racism had not existed during their youth.
“She was just stopped in her tracks, and sort of said, ‘I’ve got work to do here,’” said Gene Thompson, who grew up alongside the Paden family in Witherbee.
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Thompson, who now lives in Massachusetts, has been traveling back home for the past three summers to attend Green’s annual gathering in Essex. Despite Green’s success in Albany, founding the Center for Law and Justice advocacy group, and authoring several books, Thompson said the late activist never forgot her Adirondack roots.
“When you actually just hung out with her, the old accent came out, and the simple terms and the Paden family mannerisms and all that were still there,” said Thompson. “And I think that was her power.”
Continuing racial dialogue
Thompson said the first gathering started as an experiment, with a handful of Green’s hometown friends and other locals coming together to candidly discuss racism in the region. Even in its infancy, he said, it was clear the gathering had opened a dialogue that had not previously existed.
“We switched from coffee to a tea to beer and whatever, but never came off the porch,” said Thompson. “Those 12 hours are probably the most valuable 12 hours I’ve had about the issue.”
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Last year, the gathering took on a bigger focus—spending most of the weekend discussing the state’s ongoing reparations commission. 2024 was Yunga Webb’s first time attending. Webb, a longtime DEI organizer in schools and founder of a nonprofit that helps Black families buy homes, credits Green with inspiring her to become an activist.
“She’s one of the few people in this region that I felt were action people,” Webb said. “She’s inspired me to continue the action. Conversation must continue to take place, but then there are a few of us that need to just literally be the movers and the shakers.”
Alice Green’s legacy
Green’s work extended far beyond the Adirondacks. The Center for Law and Justice continues to advocate for police accountability and incarcerated individuals in Albany. During her career, Green sat on multiple statewide commissions addressing mass incarceration, worked for the state under Gov. Mario Cuomo, and helped Albany’s police department establish a LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) program.
Even with that workload, she never stopped mentoring, said Deb Privott, who first met Green while pursuing her doctoral degree.
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“Anytime I ever asked her to come meet with a student, she would always say yes,” said Privott, who worked at the University at Albany. “She wanted students to be involved. She wanted them to be their own agents.”
Privott, who attended both Green’s celebration of life and this year’s gathering in Essex, said the crowd that came together in her honor proved how deeply Green’s work resonated with her peers.
“I know for sure that she continues to live. There’s no question in my mind,” said Privott. “And not only that, we now have to be as intentional as she was.”
Before this year’s gathering began, some wondered how it could continue without Green. Her husband, Charles Touhey, said keeping the conversation about racism going at the couple’s longtime vacation home is precisely what she would have wanted.
“Her legacy is this,” Touhey said. “This property should be a living, breathing example to the world of how people can get along and think about serious issues … and we can have a civil conversation on the lawn anytime we want.”
The word “legacy” hung over many throughout the afternoon. For Touhey, his wife’s fight for justice does not end with her—it continues with everyone she touched.
“You don’t want to be like Alice,” he said. “But you want to take from her, her strength, and find your strength in your own particular voice. Don’t just be passive. Her legacy is, if you see something wrong, do something about it.”
Even if they cannot be exactly like Alice, many are determined to keep her spirit alive.
David Escobar is a Report For America Corps Member. He reports on diversity issues in the Adirondacks through a partnership between North Country Public Radio and Adirondack Explorer.
Photo at top: Alice Green, author and executive director of the Center for Law and Justice, near her residence in Essex. Photo courtesy of Alice Green
“The book, and the community discussions that followed, were sparked in part by Green’s 50th high school reunion, where classmates insisted that racism had not existed during their youth.”
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