Last updated: February 18, 2025
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Black History in the Last Frontier: Mahala Ashley Dickerson
Photo Courtesy of Erik Hill, Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage Daily News Archive).
Reprinted from her book, Delayed Justice for Sale, Anchorage, AK: Al-Acres, 1998. Mahala Ashley Dickerson Papers, 1958-2007, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Alabama to Alaska
Dickerson returned to Alabama, where she became the first black female lawyer in the state in 1948. She spent the next six decades in the legal profession and made a name for herself representing people who faced discrimination. After spending three years practicing law in Alabama, she relocated to Indiana in 1951. There, she became only the second black woman admitted to the bar in that state.A few years later, Dickerson took a vacation to Alaska where she grew enamored with the landscape and natural beauty. After a brief return to Indiana, Dickerson decided to make the move north. Upon filing a claim for a 160-acre homestead in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley near Wasilla in 1958, Dickerson became the territory’s first black homesteader.
Mahala Ashley Dickerson Papers, 1958-2007, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, Duke University.
First Black Lawyer in Alaska
A few months later, Dickerson passed the Alaska Bar exam and became the first black lawyer in Alaska. Though Dickerson faced discrimination in Alaska as she had elsewhere, she nevertheless stayed and eventually opened law offices in Wasilla and Anchorage. She was known for her inspired defense of her clients. “My zeal was often resented by opposing counsel. I had no fear of the other attorney and often incurred his wrath,” Dickerson once said.In one of her most notable trials, Dickerson won a precedent-setting case for female faculty members at the University of Alaska who received lower wages than their male counterparts.
Mahala Ashley Dickerson Papers, 1958- 2007, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Outstanding American Lawyer
In addition, she received many legal honors throughout her career. She served as president of the National Association of Women Lawyers from 1983-84, and in 1985 was awarded the Zeta Phi Beta Award for distinguished service in the field of law. In 1995, Dickerson received the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association, an honor recognizing the most outstanding American female lawyers. Dickerson warmly boasted, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg got hers before me, but I got mine before Sandra Day O’Connor.”In addition to her courtroom accolades, Dickerson published an autobiography, Delayed Justice for Sale in 1998. She claimed, “In my life, I didn’t have but two things to do. Those were to stay black and die. I’m just not afraid to fight somebody big.” Her accomplishments will stand among the elites of not only Alaska’s history, but also the history of the legal profession, and the history of civil rights and women’s activism.
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Deeply involved in human rights in the 1960s and 1970s, Willard Bowman spoke candidly about the prevalence of racial discrimination in Alaska and proposed solutions to address the inequities. Serving African Americans and Alaska Natives across the state, his work left a lasting legacy.
Mahala Ashley Dickerson was not only the Matanuska-Susitna Valley's first Black homesteader, she was also the first Black lawyer in Alaska. Her groundbreaking career was filled with zeal for helping others and she was recognized nationally for her courtroom prowess.
Following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the fear of a military invasion in North America increased. The U.S. Armed Forces sought to fortify and connect Alaska to the nation’s contiguous 48 states. The work was difficult and the demand for additional workers was so high that the military reversed some of its discriminatory policies to allow black troops to participate in the construction effort.
Thomas Stokes Bevers set out to make a new life in the West after World War I. Settling in Anchorage, he quickly became a community leader while serving as Anchorage's first paid firefighter and founding Fur Rendezvous, a yearly event that still occurs today.
- Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Black History in the Last Frontier: Company L, 24th Infantry
- Locations: Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Black soldiers were among the first members of the United States military to arrive in Alaska on the heels of the Klondike Gold Rush. Today, arguably no single institution has had as large of an impact on Alaska as the United States military. The men who served in Company L, 24th Infantry might thus be seen as among the first soldiers who initiated a long, deep relationship between the military and Alaska.
Born in Georgia in 1839, the son of an Irish-born slaveholder and a black woman, Michael Healy grew up amid the tumult of sectional conflict and civil war. Though he was born enslaved, he would go on to live an accomplished life at sea. At the peak of his career, Healy knew the expanse of the North Pacific and Arctic waters better than anyone.
- Locations: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Iñupiat Heritage Center, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
Black whalers were among the first Americans to reach Alaska, specifically its southeast panhandle, in the early 1840s. Some of these men had escaped enslavement in the American South, while others were free men of color from the North. It would have been difficult to find a more racially and geographically diverse industry than whaling in the nineteenth century.