Alice Green

By Jack Rightmyer

Residence: Albany

Hometown: Witherbee

Family: Charles Touhey, husband

Occupation: PhD in Criminal Justice; Executive Director for the Center of Law and Justice in Albany

Sport: Running

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Alice Green, the Executive Director of the Center for Law and Justice in Albany that she founded back in 1985, has been an activist and a fighter for racial justice for most of her life. She’s been a prison reform advocate, a civil rights activist, and today she is at the forefront in changing the way many police forces in our country have brutalized the poor and people of color. She attributed much of her perseverance to some of the personal qualities she has acquired by participating in sports.

She was born in Greenville, S.C., and moved to the hamlet of Witherbee, near Port Henry in the Adirondacks, in 1948. Her dad took a job in the mining industry as a way to escape the Jim Crow laws in the South, a series of anti-black laws. “We were one of only two black families in the town. I had two sisters and three brothers and we attended a school system that didn’t understand black people and knew nothing about them and their history. Because of that, we didn’t know much more than they did about black culture. We never even read a black author. The town and the mountains separated us from the outside world.”

One of the things that gave her family respect and inclusion in the white school community, especially for her brothers, was how they excelled in sports. “Two of my brothers were outstanding in track and football, and my brother Ralph just had a stadium named after him in Maryland, where he became a successful football coach.”

As a school girl, Alice excelled in basketball, volleyball and softball. “Sports have always been important in the personal lives of my family, just as it has been for many blacks in the civil rights movement, going all the way back to the 1940s and Jackie Robinson. So many great black athletes have paved the way for so much positive change that has happened in this country.”

She has always identified with sports figures who were principled and took a stand about some form of inequality. “Of course today, we all admire what Colin Kaepernick did in taking a knee during the national anthem to make a statement about police brutality, and in my house I have a picture of Tommie Smith and John Carlos standing on the medal podium at the 1968 Olympics and giving the Black Power salute to protest racism and injustice in the United States. That took such courage for them to do that, and it made me feel so proud.”

For the past 40 years running has been her sport of choice. “I never thought I’d be a runner, and it was back in the late 1970s or early 1980s and a lot of people were out there running when I thought I’d give it a try. I made a goal of running one block, and that was going to be it. I ran a block and was proud of myself. The next day I thought I’d add another block, and eventually I was running for miles at a time.”

She eventually found out it was not only satisfying for her physically, but it gave her a way to cope with all the stress that comes with her type of work. “I’m an early riser, so I’m usually out the door on my run at 5am. Running clears my head so I can relax and also it helps me think. I have written many papers and speeches in my head while I’ve been out running. Running has made me a better writer. When I get back from my run I just sit down and the ideas flow.”

For a while she was running and enjoying the activity of just being out on the roads early in the morning, and then someone encouraged her to run a race. “It might have been the Freihofer’s Run for Women, and it was marvelous. I loved running with all those people. There’s a lot of camaraderie connected to running in a group. I met a lot of people and they began to encourage me to race longer distances from 5Ks to 10Ks and even half marathons. I ran the Price Chopperthon 30K (18.6 miles) three times, and I even ran the New York City Marathon.”

Running the 26.2 marathon did a lot for her ego. “I loved it. It was fun to run through all five boroughs and see all the New York neighborhoods. The people were so friendly and cheering us on. The toughness you need to complete a marathon is similar to what you need as a civil rights activist.”

Through most of her life Alice Green has been on numerous campaigns, marches and protests, but what she sees happening throughout the country today feels very different. “The video of Ahmaud Arbery being chased down by the truck and killed while he was out for a run showed the country what all black runners fear. As a runner, I have always had to think about where I’m going to run. There are certain neighborhoods I will avoid. The sad thing is that without that video those killers would never have been arrested, and for black people who run our biggest fear was being played out right there for all to see.”

With that video and the one showing George Floyd being murdered by the Minneapolis police officer, Alice feels the country is finally beginning to understand to some extent what systemic racism looks like. “People often think about black people in terms of where they belong, and I think finally the country is seeing how unfair this is, and it can’t go on any longer. These videos show why so many blacks are fearful living in this country, and angry, and these feelings just become part of who you are. It’s very upsetting.”

She views what is happening today as an uprising, and she’s very encouraged that it’s coming from the people, a diverse cross section of the public – white, black, young and old. “Even that video of the woman in Central Park calling the police on the black birdwatcher was so important to show what white supremacy is. That woman knew exactly what she was doing. She thought she was superior to that black man and that she would have the backing of the police. I was so proud of how that man responded with courage and dignity.”

For years Alice has been pushing local, state and national leaders to provide strong leadership to do away with the systemic racism in our country, and she’s encouraged to see a younger group of people leading this movement. “We must take this energy and turn it in to real change, and we need to get these young people to vote this November.”

As a child growing up in Witherbee, she never really appreciated the beauty of the Adirondacks, but she does today. In 1997 she formed the Paden Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color in Essex. “I hope to encourage more people of color to visit the Adirondacks, to hike in the area, and enjoy the beauty of the region. It’s important for your well-being.”

She also used to believe that real change would never happen in her lifetime, but after what she’s seen in the past few weeks, she’s much more hopeful. “I’ve been disappointed many times before, but I think of my great-grandmother who was a slave and my grandmother who was a sharecropper, and those two women give me the strength to keep fighting for social justice.”

Jack Rightmyer (jackxc@nycap.rr.com) was a longtime cross country coach at Bethlehem High School and today is an Adjunct English Professor at Siena College. He has written two books “A Funny Thing About Teaching” and “It’s Not About Winning.”