Charles Hatfield Dickerson

Charles Hatfield Dickerson was born in 1862 to Prince and Hannah Dickerson in Sumter, South Carolina. According to the 1870 Census, the family continued living in Sumter with his father working as a farm laborer.¹

He completed Howard University’s Preparatory Department in 1883 and Oberlin College’s preparatory school in 1886. After receiving a bachelor of arts from Oberlin in 1889, he enrolled at the Yale Divinity School the same year. He received a ministry of licensure from the New Haven Ministerial Association in 1890.² He graduated from Yale Divinity School with a bachelor of divinity in 1891 and returned to Oberlin College to receive a master's from Oberlin College the following year.³

Following his graduation from Oberlin, he began his clerical career in Rhode Island where he pastored over the Olivet Congregational Church.⁴ He was also a member of the Thomas R. Reed Republican Club. On April 20, 1892, he spoke on “The Political Interests of the Negro” saying:

“We have political interests because we are citizens. Thorough organization of all Republicans in this State won the glorious Republican victory, April 6. Organization is the law of the universe and a thorough organization of our political strength in the interests of our people will be productive of great results. We are not Republicans because of gratitude. We are Republicans because thinking, sensible men, who have the interests of their race and the peace and perpetuity of their country at heart, cannot be anything else; and we believe in those principles for which Grant fought, and Lincoln died. If we must have quarrels, let us quarrel among ourselves. Let them be our fights. In the North we have our rights. In the South we are not recognized in any thing pertaining to the interests of the State, and it is only when questions of local option and the like, are being discussed and voted upon, that we are permitted to cast our vote and to have that vote counted as cast.”⁵

He moved to Newark, New Jersey in 1892 to pastor over Bethlehem Congregational Church.⁶ In 1895, he was invited to speak at Boston Young Men’s Chrisitan Union where Booker T. Washington was present and Hatfield lavished praise for Washington.⁷ In that same year, he married Ruth C. Battles in Newark, New Jersey.⁸

On August 20, 1896, Hatfield traveled from Newark to New York to sit in on a political rally happening in Madison Square Garden. He took box seats that he thought were vacant when two white women approached him for taking their box. One of the women yelled at Dickerson saying, “I, for one, will not sit in the same box with a negro. Nothing could induce me to.” A police officer approached them but refused to escort Dickerson out after. An usher soon arrived, and Dickerson argued with the usher saying that management made all seats free after a certain time. The usher ignored Dickerson’s claim and grabbed Dickerson’s coat collar, escorting him out from the box to the protest of many at the center. Another man offered him his box for the night and other attendees offered to represent him in a lawsuit.⁹

In 1901, he and his wife divorced over a female congregant being invited to stay with the family.¹⁰ The following year, Dickerson was arrested for removing church property and ended his clerical career.¹¹ He eventually moved to Chicago where he was an active writer and activist.¹² In Chicago, he was a member of the United Civic League and oversaw publicity affairs for the National Council of the United States.¹³ Dickerson was also active in Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association where he was made president of the Chicago Chapter by 1920.¹⁴ He died on March 31, 1925, in Jefferson, Kentucky of an aortic aneurysm.¹⁵

Life's flowers and the Eastland disaster. Chicago, IL: n.p., 1916.

Relation of colored man to the Republic, address to Ives Post, no. 33, G.A.R. Providence, R.I., Nov. 22, 1891, and Liberty and equality delivered at annual celebration of 15th Amendment. Newark, NJ: s.p., 1896.