It was thrilling to hear Kamala Harris talk about the America I believe in. But when Alice Green died as the Convention was getting under way, we lost a friend and freedom lost a champion.
Forty odd years ago, the local Civil Liberties legal committee, trying to address local policing, asked me to reach out to Alice. We hadn’t met before, but she agreed to talk with us, and upended our thinking about policing in Black communities. Instead of too much policing, there was too little. The community wanted and needed more help to keep the peace.
It wouldn’t be the last time Alice surprised me with her intimate knowledge of African-American life and history in Albany. She introduced me to living members of early fighters for civil rights in Albany known as The Brothers. I put a film of their work into the library at Albany Law where I taught.
Alice was unstoppable, unflappable and ready to act. She introduced me to someone who, after getting out of prison, devoted himself to working with others to prevent them from making equally disastrous mistakes. Alice could find the good in people and help them get the chance they needed. Her empathy and understanding of what happened to people who had made a wrong turn were impressive.
I regularly consulted Alice about people and issues. We didn’t always agree about strategy – I had studied, worked for and written about civil rights and had my own strongly held views. But that never interfered with our relationship or respect for one another.
Alice was mild in manner, calm in approach but unflinching in addressing the problems and underlying causes of persistent disadvantages for African-Americans. She grew up in an almost entirely white community in the Adirondacks but studied, listened and figured out what had hurt people and the community.
Alice was addressing generational wealth near the time of her death. It’s a difficult truth for many who are not Black, but Alice understood that Blacks have been held back by the larger society’s repeated taking of the hard-won earnings of the Black community, which Alice referred to as generational wealth. Desegregation came at the expense of Black wealth as white institutions benefitted and Black ones languished. Urban renewal, which my Black friends bitterly called Black clearance, came at the expense of Black wealth as large parts of their communities were torn down. Highways and public buildings were built right though Black communities, both successful and poor ones. Important connections exist within communities between clerics and their congregations, people and their jobs, professionals and their clients, stores and their patrons. Tearing down their communities sacrifices everything that stabilizes them. Blacks’ difficulties buying or renting made it worse.
One more example – we honor the Negro Leagues now but integration meant White teams gained a new audience while Black teams shriveled and disappeared without compensation for the taking of their players. Thank heavens the players had that opportunity, and that people like the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey signed them, but the capital invested in the Negro Leagues just withered. No Major League team ever had to face the loss of their investment that way.
That process of appropriation of black assets went on long after slavery was outlawed, and after segregation became illegal. Individual Blacks finally gained income and recognition but the Black community was consistently ignored. Alice understood. Others rarely did.
We will miss Alice. She was a friend, an ally, a lovely person and a big loss.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.