Patricia A. Hill

Patricia Arlene Hill (née Hicks), of Toms River NJ, passed away on Thursday, April 16th from complications due to Covid-19.

Patricia was born in East Orange, NJ in 1942 to Thomas and Marion Hicks. She graduated from East Orange High School in 1960 and then Rutgers University in 1964, later receiving her teaching certification from William Patterson University in 1968.

In 1959 Patricia met Floyd Hill and they married in 1965. They began their married life in East Orange and then moved to Newark, eventually settling in Port Murray NJ in 1970, where they raised their son Dennis with the help of Patricia’s mother Marion T. Hicks.

Her compassion and desire to resist against systems of structural oppression led her to become a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) in the late 1950s. As a member of C.O.R.E., she participated in the lunch counter sit-ins in 1960, as well as the Freedom Rides in the spring and summer of 1961, turning back only after their bus was set on fire by white supremacists in Alabama. She later participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963 and was a longtime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

She worked as a social worker for the Newark Board of Social Services for much of the 1960s, followed by teaching second grade in Dover, NJ in the early 1970s. Her diagnosis of Friedreich’s Ataxia presented challenges to continuing to work full time in education, and so she ended up working part time as an Avon Representative during the late 1970s and much of the 1980s.

She was active in the Presbyterian Church (USA), becoming a Ruling Elder in Rockport Presbyterian Church in 1985, and working as church secretary during the 1980s and 1990s.

Patricia is survived by her son Dennis, his partner Leslie, her former daughter-in-law Alexis, her sister Beverly Ann Richardson and husband Alton Richardson, Sr., her nephew Alton Richardson Jr., half-sister Shirley Williams, cousin Fred Reagan, and a number of beloved friends and extended family.

In lieu of flowers please consider a donation in Patricia’s memory to Human Needs Food Pantry of Montclair, NJ (http://www.humanneedsfoodpantry.org/donate) or the Poor People’s Campaign (https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/)