Earl B. Dickerson was born in Canton, Mississippi, but moved to Chicago in his teens. He studied at the University of Illinois and earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago Law School. Among other distinctions, Dickerson was the first black Democratic alderman elected to the Chicago City Council, served in President Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practices Committee and was active in breaking down the color barrier in the Illinois Bar Association. He also served as president and chairman of Supreme Life Insurance Company, one of the largest black-owned insurance companies. Dickerson is known for having successfully argued Hansberry v. Lee before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940. In this landmark case the Court ruled that whites cannot bar African Americans from white neighborhoods.