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Women of Peace Corps Legacy is shining the spotlight on a true leader in our political process, China Dickerson!  

China Dickerson, a Black, Christian, 36 year old woman from the Deep South; Charleston, SC to be exact, is a political strategist based in Washington, DC. She mostly works with women of color candidates and organizations that support such women.

China, like many Black PCVs and PCVs of color,  had never heard of the Peace Corps until her National Government professor at Howard University suggested that she research the organization more and perhaps join. Since the second grade, she had aspired to be an attorney. In her junior year of college, she approached said professor for a recommendation for her law school application. He said no, explaining that the legal field was already so saturated and that she should consider diplomacy, a field that needed more Black woman representation. Her professor thought that the Peace Corps would give her a good sense of what it would be to represent and express America while living, experiencing, and becoming a part of a community overseas. 

China with community members in her Peace Corps site in El Salvador

China was hesitant at first because she had never traveled outside of the country. She also didn’t come from a culture that thought that international relations should be a priority for successful Black people. While international relations is important, she says “my culture believed that we had so much on the line at home, in America, that we should prioritize our work here.” While she tends to agree with that sentiment, she now understands that we can work on more than one thing at once stating that “Our freedoms and liberties in America can not be absolute if we don’t have global freedoms and liberties.”

As a PCV in El Salvador, China worked in a very rural community with the mayor’s and other administrative offices. She mostly helped them to brainstorm, strategize, and bring resources to the community. Additionally, she organized and oversaw workshops given to women in regards to their civil rights and prevention of domestic violence; men on the topic of sexism; and youth regarding self-esteem, STD awareness, and sexual abuse. Her experience was very difficult, but she shared “that it was of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in my entire life. I would do it again!”

China in her Peace Corps site in El Salvador

When China initially returned to the U.S., she was involved with RPCV/W in a leadership position. Since then she has maintained a network of friends that are also RPCVs that she stays in touch with. 

How did China's experience as a PCV influence her career path and other volunteer/activist work?

“Simply one influence, I knew that I wanted to be a public servant. Initially, I wanted to be an attorney that represented international corporations. My Peace Corps experience showed me that individuals and families need more help and advocacy and protection than multi-million or billion dollar corporations. While I believe that business is critical to our economy which impacts families, I also believe my first priority as a young graduate was to work to protect humans first.”

This is an election year and due to the nature of China’s professional career, she has some advice for the RPCV community looking to be engaged in the democratic process:

1. Run for OFFICE!!! And if you need help doing it, reach out to her!.

2. DONATE MONEY to candidates you support. Even if it’s $5, nothing happens without money. Volunteering your time is great, but nothing shifts votes like paid advertisements. Also, candidates should pay their staff and not rely on volunteer help. Money helps, a lot!

3. VOLUNTEER! You already know that that is important.

4. Support candidates that are DIFFERENT than what you are used to. For too long, white, wealthy men have run our communities and country. Support candidates that are more reflective of the population. Our communities and country works best when we have people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs representing us.

China is an inspiration!  Here is one final reflection that she shared on her Peace Corps experience: 

“Peace Corps is difficult. It is probably the most difficult thing you will do in your entire life. However, if your heart is in helping people and making the world a better place, even if it is just to make one child’s day better, you should consider joining the Peace Corps. You will leave a better person; a person you didn’t know you could be.”

For Pride Month this year, we would like to turn our attention to two amazing RPCV's, Roma Guy and Diane Jones, both recipients of the Women of Peace Corps Legacy's Diane Harding Award.  

Roma Guy was born at the northern Maine & Canadian border in 1942. At that time in history Roma says that she was “born a criminal” because of her sexual identity as a lesbian. Over time, Roma learned to recognize these social identifiers, own them, and then eventually enjoy them in an historic personal and social struggle despite her confusion and fear at a younger age.

 Roma Guy, Peace Corps Volunteer, Cote d'Ivoire 

In 1962 Roma joined the Peace Corps as part of the first group of volunteers invited to serve in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa.  Roma was was assigned to the town of Bondoukou, along an ancient trade route between Egypt, across the Sahara Desert ending at the Atlantic Ocean borders of the Gold Coast.  This group of Volunteers, with guidance and support from staff and the Ivory Coast health system, opened a community-based literacy and health education center for women. During her service she moved to a central region to Tiebissou Village. In her village she developed and expanded comprehensive health education and programs, such as digging water wells and creating village links to the nearest health care center on “market days” in the regions. 

Roma shared the following on her time in the Peace Corps:

“A life giving, deep core experience, personally and socially I absorbed history, cultural beliefs and what it takes to accomplish structural change especially related to who defines who we are, the focus needed over time including the importance of local and institutional leadership and consensus. I learned who I am during this tiny moment alive on the planet.”

In 1967-68, Roma enrolled at Wayne State University in the MSW program, studying community organizing and urban planning. In 1967, she was an organizer in an all-Black elementary school in the middle of the Black community. Her colleagues included  a white principal, a diverse staff of teachers, and a superintendent who was a “cool-headed, rabid anti-union, anti-Communist overseer of the whole area.” Then it happened: July 23, 1967 Detroit exploded, Roma remembers it as a “Black Rebellion (a riot for some)…fight or flight?”  She needed to know how to move with the protest, the resistance, and the negative and positive consequences. This included harnessing what she called “the energy and focus of movement building to change the history of former slaves, Jim Crow, second-class citizens. I stood with the teachers, experienced the terror of policing, stayed on point bringing the social and educational needs of poorly resourced public schools.”

Diane Jones, Peace Corps Volunteer, Togo, West Africa

In 1972 Roma met Diane Jones, her life partner, who she married legally in 2008. The two met in Togo, West Africa when Roma was recruited by the Peace Corps to direct a training program. Since her return to the U.S. she has conducted and participated in training programs and evaluation for the Peace Corps.  She also worked on the opening of new sites in Africa for the Peace Corps in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Cameroon and Tanzania. On one of those training programs in Togo, West Africa, she met Diane. While the two fell in love, Roma says that she “was still in flight, a significant case of denial mode!” Through ups and downs, turmoil, love letters back and forth, they acknowledged their loving moments and enjoyed the fun and strength love brings home. 

Roma’s story of activism in San Francisco was featured in the ABC miniseries “When we Rise”, directed by Lance Black, and released in 2017. 

Diane was a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to support health clinics in her site in Togo. This is what spurred Diane’s lifelong career.  Today, Diane is an RN which she credits to her experience in Togo. She returned to the U.S. to attend midwifery school. 

Both Diane and Roma went on to lead very rich careers in public health which was mostly impacted by the rise of HIV/AIDS.  Diane played a critical medical role in the start of the hospital-based, community-centered, and individual care known as the “SF Model”. Diane has been part and parcel of San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California team for 35 years. In addition to her work in San Francisco, Diane conducted several HIV trainings in Cote d’Ivoire between 2009 and 2010. Today, she and her team of infectious disease specialists have pivoted to apply their skills and values to Coronavirus pandemic.  In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic Diane and Roma were recently featured on KQED FM.  They were interviewed by Scott Shaeffer, which was aired on PBS in May 2020.  

Diane leading HIV training in Côte d'Ivoire.

Currently, Roma and Diane live in San Francisco with their extended family, including their three grandchildren.

Even after a long, distinguished career, Roma says that her focus remains on “women, cis/trans rights, health rights for all, decarceration of San Francisco jails.” She is also very focused on “how the latest police murder of George Floyd has finally smashed shield and armor projecting fear and harmful values and practices in the name of policing for safety.”

Roma and Diane on an early morning stroll in San Francisco

Roma’s and Diane’s advice to the RPCV community:

“Find your spot in the current movement for justice, Black Lives Matter at its core; commit to whatever place and ability you appreciate in yourself and be honest in your contribution. Grow beyond human fear, denial and flight by advocating for cultural and structural change based on practices of transparency and public accountability. Develop a baseline for equity---build and vote for equity of our taxation system so that we can invest with equity driven decarceration, housing, health care, real education for all our children and a safe climate change strategy for our children and grandchildren for at least 7 generations. VOTE! Locally, statewide, nationally and make voting safe and efficient for all. All our human rights and liberties are at stake."

For Roma, her “honest contribution” is working towards defunding racist housing and education policies and increasing access to mental health and substance use services.  She is also engaged in breaking down the stigma of the poor and homelessness, all of which includes policing and incarceration. 

Roma Guy soliciting signatures for a tax reform petition at the San Francisco Pride Parade in 2018

In Roma’s words, “PRIDE HONORS AND REPRESENTS personal and social struggles for action, resting, listening and reflection, protest and persistent focusing.  Structural change takes consensus, usually first by a small group of people who are inspired and are willing to go for an imagined transformation by and for all of us. To change the rules of codifying our values, some of us must willingly account culturally and with leadership. That’s what our current Movement spurred by Black Lives Matter and the current COVID-19 pandemic teaches.”