03/27/2025
ALICE PADEN GREEN (1940 – 2024) by Patricia Sullivan
Alice Paden moved to the Adirondacks from South Carolina in 1948. Her father was unemployed, and the family had been existing in dire poverty while attempting to survive the prejudice of the Jim Crow south. Moving to Witherbee/Mineville provided her father, William Paden, Sr., employment mining iron for the Republic Steel Corporation.
The family was one of only two Black families living in the Elizabeth St. community. Mineville was predominantly Catholic, so the two families started the Lakeview Baptist Church which mirrored the Southern churches they left behind. The church became the center of their religious and social activities. By the 1950s, following the end of WW II, many Black veterans moved their families north seeking employment. Men worked in the mines and the women were responsible for raising children and keeping the home. Mining was a dangerous profession and there were many accidents. Her father was involved in a serious accident when a coal car rolled over his legs. He partially recovered but was never able return to his old job and instead, was forced to work at a much lower wage.
Once again the Padens began to live in extreme poverty, existing on the generosity of family and friends. Alice wanted to help earn money, so she sought employment at a local hotel. She was hired, but when she was shown her living accommodation she refused. White employees were housed in the hotel; Blacks, and others of questionable lineage, were to stay in the barn --- with hundreds of bats. She understood for the first time the racism and prejudice that existed in her beloved Adirondacks.
She particularly struggled against the idea that somehow the color of her skin meant that she was not as intelligent as her white neighbors. Alice proved this to be untrue. She went on to earn two master’s degrees, a teaching certificate, and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice. She also authored and co-authored several books, one of them a memoir of her life: Outsider – Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks.
Her personal life also changed at this time. First, she married, then divorced a man named Green, retaining his name for herself. In 1973, she met and married Charles Touhey, a white businessman from Albany. They were married for 52 years.
Alice believed in Civil rights and equal treatment for all people. She was especially concerned about rights for prisoners and those living in poverty. In 1985, she founded the Center for Law and Justice in Albany and was arrested for disorderly conduct when she was denied access to prisons and debated the fairness of the justice system. She studied the demographics of the prison system and found that although many of them were predominantly Black and Latinos, the prisons themselves were usually located in white, rural communities. She felt that this adversely affected how non-local people would view the Adirondacks and that they would see it as a hostile, closed environment.
Alice strove to encourage diversity and creativity in the Adirondacks, so she started the Paden Institute for Writers of Color. This provided a haven for writers to practice their craft and encouraged them to become immersed in the beauty of the mountains.
Alice was an unconventional advocate for the Adirondacks and despite all her heartfelt causes, she never forgot where she grew up and where she called home. Alice passed away on August 20, 2024 in Albany.
Resources:
Albany Times Union. “Alice Green.” Obituary. August 23, 2024.
Ancestry.com.
Caudell, Robin. “Essex Author Speaks about Racism, DEI One Year after Her Memoir’s Release.” Albany Times Union. June 10, 2024.
Green, Alice Paden. “My Adirondack Life.” Adirondack Life, August 2020.
Green, Alice Paden. Outsider: Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks. Albany: KJ Press, 2023.
Grondahl, Paul. “Remembering Civil Right Champion Alice Green.” Albany Times Union, August 28, 2024.
Lynn, Peggy and Sandra Weber. Breaking Trail – Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks. Fleischmanns, NY: Purple Mountain Press, 2004.
