Mahala Ashley Dickerson | |
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| Born | Mahala Ashley (1912-10-12)October 12, 1912 Montgomery County, Alabama, United States |
| Died | February 19, 2007(2007-02-19) (aged 94) Wasilla, Alaska, United States |
| Resting place | Wasilla, Alaska |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Fisk University;Howard University School of Law |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Spouse(s) | Henry Dickerson (m. 1938–1939);Frank R. Beckwith (m. 1951–ca. 1958) |
| Children | Alfred Dickerson, John Dickerson, andHenri Christophe "Chris" Dickerson |
| Parent(s) | Hattie (Moss) and John Augustine Ashley |
| Awards | Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement honoree (1995) |
Mahala Ashley Dickerson (October 12, 1912 – February 19, 2007) was anAmericanlawyer andcivil rights advocate for women and minorities. In 1948 she became the firstAfrican American femaleattorney admitted to theAlabama State Bar; in 1951 she was the second African American woman admitted to theIndiana bar; and in 1959 she wasAlaska's first African American attorney. In 1983 Dickerson was the first African American to be elected president of theNational Association of Women Lawyers. Her long legal career also helped to pave the way for other women attorneys. In 1995 theAmerican Bar Association named her aMargaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement honoree.
Mahala Ashley was born in ruralMontgomery County, Alabama, on October 12, 1912, to Hattie (Moss) and John Augustine Ashley. Her father was the owner of a general store. Her siblings included two sisters, Erna and Harriette.[1][2] Ashley grew up inAlabama on a plantation her father inherited. She was inspired to become a lawyer when a lawyer helped her aunt receive monthly compensation payments after her uncle fell down an elevator shaft.[3]
Ashley attendedMontgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White's School), a private school inMontgomery, where she metRosa Parks, her lifelong friend who would become an activist in thecivil rights movement. In 1935, Ashley graduatedcum laude with a degree in sociology fromFisk University inNashville, Tennessee.[1][2]
Following her divorce from her first husband, Henry Dickerson, in 1939, Mahala Ashley enrolled at theHoward University School of Law inWashington, D.C. She graduated cum laude and was one of four women to graduate in her class of 1948.[1][2]
Mahala Ashley married Henry Dickerson in 1938, but they divorced the following year. The Dickersons were the parents of triplet sons: Alfred, John andHenri Christophe "Chris" (who became a well-known professionalbodybuilder).[2][4]
In 1951 Mahala Dickerson marriedFrank R. Beckwith, an Indianapolis attorney, and relocated with her three sons to Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1958, after her marriage to Beckwith ended in divorce, Dickerson moved toAlaska. The couple had no children together.[2][5] In 1960 Beckwith became the first African American to run as a candidate forPresident of the United States in a major-party primary when he ran in Indiana's Republican presidential primary.[6][7]He also ran in Indiana'sRepublican presidential primary in 1964.[8]
After graduating from law school, Dickerson returned to Alabama to practice law. In 1948 she became the first African-American woman to be admitted to theAlabama State Bar. Dickerson established offices in Montgomery andTuskegee, Alabama, where she practiced law for the next three years.[1][2][5]
In 1951, following her marriage to Frank Beckwith, Dickerson moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, and became the second black woman to be admitted to the Indiana bar.[1][2][5] Dickerson and Beckwith practiced together for a year before she opened her own law office in Indianapolis.She was especially interested labor and civil rights issues. In 1953, for example, Dickerson petitioned thePublic Service Commission to request that the commissioners deny approval of a local transportation company's requests for fare increases until the company agreed to discontinue what she argued were its discriminatory practices against bus drivers and trolley operators.[1]
In 1958, after working as an attorney in Alabama and Indiana, she took a vacation to Alaska and decided to move there with her sons. Dickerson established a homestead of 160 acres (65 hectares),[5][9] making her Alaska's first female black homesteader.[10] When she passed the Alaska bar exam, she became the first African American attorney and one of only a few women practicing law in the state.[1][5][10] Dickerson established a law practice anAnchorage in 1959. One of her most notable cases was an equal pay lawsuit filed on behalf of a female professor at theUniversity of Alaska. It was one of the first cases representing women professors at an American university whose salaries were lower than their male counterparts. Dickerson initially lost the case, but the court's decision was reversed on appeal in 1975.[2][4]
During her years in Indianapolis she was active inAlpha Kappa Alpha sorority, theNational Bar Association, theNational Lawyers Guild,Americans for Democratic Action, theReligious Society of Friends (Quakers), theYWCA andNAACP.[11] She also served as chairman of the board of directors of the Marion County [Indiana] Colored Women's Republican Club.[12]
Dickerson remained active in her later years. In addition to serving as president of Dickerson and Gibbons, the law firm she established in Alaska, she founded Al-Acres, a charitable non-profit organization.[5] In 1983 she was elected the first black president of theNational Association of Women Lawyers. In 1984 the University of Alaska awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. TheAmerican Bar Association also recognized Dickerson for her civil rights advocacy and legal career by naming her aMargaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement honoree in 1995. Dickerson published her memoir,Delayed Justice for Sale, in 1998.[1][2]
Throughout her long legal career Dickerson was considered an advocate for the poor and underprivileged. As she told theAnchorage Daily News, "In my life, I didn't have but two things to do. Those were to stay black and to die. I'm just not afraid to fight somebody big.... Whenever there's somebody being mistreated, if they want me, I'll help them."[13] Dickerson continued to practice law in Alaska until she was in her early nineties, only a few years before her death in 2007.[1][4]
Dickerson died inWasilla, Alaska, on February 19, 2007, at the age of ninety-four after suffering a stroke.[1][14] Dickerson is buried in a cemetery she established on her Alaska property.[2][5]
In the summer of 1950, Dickerson studied with the Quakers in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. Inspired by her time there, she donated11 acres from her homestead to the Quakers. The land is now part of the Alaska Friends Conference.[14]
Dickerson became the first black female attorney admitted to the bar in Alabama (in 1948); the second black woman admitted to the bar inIndiana (in 1951); and Alaska's first black attorney (in 1959). She was also the first black elected as president of theNational Association of Women Lawyers (in 1983). With more than fifty-years of legal experience, she also helped to pave the way for other women attorneys.[1][2][5] According to herAmerican Bar Association profile, Dickerson prosecuted "one of the first equal pay cases on behalf of women university professors who received less pay than their male counterparts."[5] In 1995, theAmerican Bar Association named Dickerson aMargaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement honoree, an honor also given toU.S. Supreme Court JusticesRuth Bader Ginsburg (a 1983 honoree) andSandra Day O'Connor (an honoree in 2000), among other notable women lawyers, judges, law professors, and government leaders.[15] Dickerson's papers are housed at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library atDuke University inDurham, North Carolina.[16]
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