Terri A. Dickerson

Terri Dickerson is Civil Rights Director for the Coast Guard, one of the five military services of the United States. A civil servant, she has been a member of the government’s Senior Executive Service since 2000. She previously was Staff Director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a position where she evaluated the nation’s civil rights effort, and published reports which offered recommendations to Congress and the White House. Earlier, she worked at the Small Business Administration ensuring equality for women- and minority-owned businesses. Prior to government service, she worked in positions which promoted justice and equity including six years as Executive Director for American Women in Radio and Television, and its non-profit 501(c)(3) Foundation. She authored the book 50 Activities for Managing Cultural Diversity (later published under the title 50 Activities for Diversity Training, HRD Press Amherst, MA, 1993). Ms. Dickerson was 2009 recipient of The Presidential Rank Award, which honors the top 5% of senior Federal employees for “sustained extraordinary accomplishment.” She also earned the 2014 Benjamin Hooks Distinguished Service Award, annually conferred by the NAACP to a civilian policy-maker for forming, implementing, and facilitating fairness and equity. She is featured in the documentary Infinite Dignity and Worth, produced in 2011 by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, wherein she comments on her experiences in 1962 as one of a few black students who integrated the New Orleans Catholic Schools (which is the focus of her PhD studies). She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville), and Masters from the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore thesis: Connecting a Nation: Interrelationship Between Government and the Media, Past, Present, and Future). She also holds certificates in Leadership Development (Johns Hopkins) and Conflict Analysis and Resolution (George Mason).