death_date death_place birth_place birth_date image article_title name
19 february 2007 wasilla , alaska , usa montgomery , alabama , usa 12 october 1912 mahala ashley dickerson.jpg mahala ashley dickerson
 mahala ashley dickerson
mahala ashley dickerson

mahala ashley dickerson -lrb- october 12 , 1912 montgomery , alabama - february 19 , 2007 wasilla , alaska -rrb- grew up in alabama on a plantation owned by her father .
she attended a private school , miss white 's school , where she began a lifelong friendship with rosa parks , who would become a hero of the civil rights movement .
dickerson graduated from fisk university in 1935 , married henry dickerson and had triplets , alfred , john and chris -lrb- a well known professional bodybuilder -rrb- .
she later divorced , and when the boys were 6 , she went to howard university school of law , becoming one of four women to graduate in her class of 1936 .
in indiana she married indianapolis attorney and later presidential candidate frank r. beckwith .
she practiced with him for a year and then opened her own law office .
after working as an attorney in alabama and indiana , she moved to alaska with her sons , where she homesteaded .
she was the first black female attorney in her home state of alabama in 1948 and the second black woman admitted to the bar in indiana in 1951 .
she was also alaska 's first black attorney , admitted to the bar in 1959 and the first black president of the national association of women lawyers , 1983-1984 .
according to her alaska 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 . ''
in 1995 , she was awarded the margaret brent award from the american bar association , an honor also given to u.s. supreme court justices ruth bader ginsburg and sandra day o'connor .
dickerson practiced law into her nineties and was considered an advocate for the poor and underprivileged .
she told the anchorage daily news , `` in my life , i did n'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 . ''
