Published On: 03.31.22 | 

By: Mark Kelly

Alabama native Mahala Ashley Dickerson lived a life of ‘firsts’

MADFeature

Mahala Ashley Dickerson made a mark in Alabama and beyond. (Fran Durner Collection / Anchorage Museum B2016.4.1021)

Throughout her long and distinguished life, Mahala Ashley Dickerson worked to eliminate barriers for herself and others. By the time of her death in 2007, at the age of 94, her reputation as a fierce legal advocate for women, minorities, the poor, and other victims of discrimination was long since assured.

Mahala Ashley Dickerson (Encyclopedia of Alabama)

Born in Montgomery County in 1912, Dickerson attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private academy for Black girls. Among her classmates there was another young woman who would grow up to challenge discrimination – Rosa Parks, with whom Dickerson formed a lifelong friendship.

Dickerson studied sociology at Nashville’s Fisk University, where she graduated with honors in 1935. She married Henry Dickerson in 1938, but the marriage lasted less than a year, though it produced triplet sons.

When World War II ended, Dickerson entered law school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. After graduating – again, with honors – she returned home to Alabama, and in June 1948 became the first Black woman admitted to the Alabama Bar. She opened law offices in Montgomery and Tuskegee, beginning a career-long commitment to representing poor and underprivileged clients, both Black and white. She also established another practice she would maintain throughout her career, that of actively mentoring young Black attorneys.

In 1951, Dickerson married Frank Beckwith, an attorney from Indianapolis. She and her sons moved to Indiana, where she became the second Black woman admitted to the bar in that state. The marriage to Beckwith also ended in divorce and, in 1958, after vacationing in Alaska and being captivated by the state’s natural beauty, Dickerson moved there. She was the first Black person admitted to the Alaska Bar and, at the time, one of only a few women licensed to practice law in the state.

As she had elsewhere, Dickerson built a reputation as an advocate for women and minorities, while also fighting discrimination within her own profession. Among her best-known cases is one from 1975, when she successfully represented female faculty members at the University of Alaska who were being paid less than their male counterparts. An indication of her prowess as a litigator came from a male friend and fellow attorney, who once recalled a conversation with another Alaska lawyer regarding Dickerson.

“You see those mountains out there?” the lawyer asked rhetorically. “Those mountains are littered with the bones of lawyers who underestimated Mahala Ashley Dickerson.”

Mahala Ashley Dickerson (Dickerson Family Collection)

Dickerson’s legal career would last well over a half-century, until her retirement at the age of 91. As her career progressed, she earned increasing recognition for her skills and accomplishments. In 1983, she was elected president of the National Association of Women Lawyers, the first Black individual to hold that position. The following year, the University of Alaska Anchorage awarded her an honorary Doctor of Law degree for her long advocacy of minority rights.

In 1995, the National Bar Association gave Dickerson its Margaret Brent Award, which recognizes female lawyers who have excelled in their field and paved the way for the success of other women in the profession (among others who have received the award are Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg). And in 2006, the Alabama State Bar honored Dickerson with its Maud McLure Kelly Award, named for the state’s first female attorney and presented annually to a female attorney who has made a lasting impact in the legal profession.

When Dickerson claimed a 160-acre homestead in Alaska in 1958, she was the first Black woman to do so – another of her many “firsts.” Her final resting place is on that property.