Dr. Alice Green. Image used with permission.

Dr. Alice Green grew up in the 1950s in one of two African-American families in the small iron mining town of Witherbee, New York. While the Adirondacks provided her with a sense of serenity and isolation from racial violence in other parts of the country, she encountered discrimination and prejudice daily in a community where she was made to feel like an outsider. African Americans have a long history in the Adirondacks, yet today many people of color do not feel welcome in the North Country. The corrections system in the Adirondacks, on which many small town economies rely, simultaneously incarcerates a disproportionately large number of people of color. These patterns have drawn criticism and force us to question how people of all backgrounds can be made to feel included in the North Country.