Chris Dickerson, who as the first Black man to win the Mr. America contest shook up the musclebound world of bodybuilding and established himself as one of its elite competitors, died on Dec.
23 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 82. The cause was heart failure, his friend Bill Neylon said. “I would like for people to feel that if man is made in the image of God, then the human body is a thing of power and beauty,” Mr.
Dickerson told The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, N.Y., in 1983. His career changed what that “image of God” could look like in bodybuilding.
Mr. Dickerson, who stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 190 pounds, was named Mr. America in 1970 and was one of the first Black men to win the Mr.