Mahala Ashley Dickerson (October 12, 1912–February 19, 2007)

Mahala Ashley Dickerson was an attorney who represented people living in poverty as well as those facing discrimination. In 1950, she spent a spiritually influential summer at the Pendle Hill Quaker study and retreat center in Wallingford, Pa. At Pendle Hill, she learned from Anna Brinton, Howard Brinton, Dorothy Steere, and Douglas Steere. She wanted to create a similarly enriching Quaker environment at her home in Alaska, which became a gathering place for the group that would become Alaska Friends Conference.

She was born on October 12, 1912, near Montgomery, Ala. Her parents were John Augustine Ashley and Hattie Moss Ashley. She died on February 19, 2007.

She graduated cum laude in 1935 from Fisk University in Tennessee. 

In 1938, she married Henry Dickerson; the couple became parents of triplets. They divorced after less than a year of marriage.

Ashley Dickerson earned a law degree from Howard University Law School from which she graduated cum laude in 1945. She remained active in Alpha Kappa Alpha well after her time in higher education ended, and eventually helped form the sorority’s first Alaskan chapter.

In 1948 she became the first Black woman to practice law in Alabama, opening firms in Montgomery and Tuskegee.

In 1951, she married Frank Beckwith of Indianapolis; she relocated there with her children. She joined the state bar, as the second African American woman to do so. The marriage ended in divorce.

In 1958, Ashley Dickerson relocated to Alaska, becoming the first African American lawyer there. In 1975, she represented female professors from the University of Alaska in an equal pay case. She lost at first but won on appeal.

She did pro bono work, mentored young attorneys, and advocated for people living in poverty.

She served as the president of the National Association of Women Lawyers from 1983–1988. She earned the Zeta Phi Beta Award in 1985. Ten years later, she won the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association for outstanding female attorneys. In addition, she served on the Pendle Hill Quaker study center’s board from 1988-1997.

Dickerson’s home in Alaska was on land that had once been the territory of the Knik Dena’ina indigenous people. She would eventually donate some of the acres next to her house to a group of unprogrammed Friends, who eventually became Alaska Friends Conference. In 1979, these Quakers, interested in establishing a peace center, built a meetinghouse on the property where they held annual sessions. During these sessions, Friends were also welcome guests in Dickerson’s home.

In 1995, Dickerson overheard a Friend making a racist comment belittling the honor of her photo having been included in a calendar created by the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, so she no longer allowed Quakers inside her house, Charlotte Basham wrote in Friends Journal. Seven years later, the Friend apologized to her. Dickerson forgave him, opening her home to Friends once more and rejoining them in worship.

In 2020, Alaska Friends Conference purchased an approximately 23-acre parcel as well as Dickerson’s house. AFC has planted native trees on the land. As of 2021 they were seeking to partner with the local NAACP chapter and honor the Knik Dena’ina people, whose historic land the property is on.