Biddy Mason
In 1856, a woman who couldn't read or write walked into a Los Angeles courtroom and won her freedom.
In 1856, an enslaved woman walked into a Los Angeles courthouse to fight for her freedom. She couldn't read, she couldn't write, and California law wouldn't let her testify against her owner in open court. She won anyway.
This is the quick story on Biddy Mason. Born enslaved in Georgia in 1818, she walked behind a wagon train all the way to Utah and then California, delivering babies and healing people along the way. Once she was free, she worked as a nurse and midwife, saved up $250, and bought land on Spring Street back when nobody wanted to be out there. That land made her one of the wealthiest Black women in the West, and she put the money right back into her people: the first AME church in Los Angeles, taxes for her neighbors, a school for Black children.
I recorded this in a converted bank building on Spring Street. Full circle.
Sources
- BlackPast, "The Bridget 'Biddy' Mason Case, 1856"
- LAist, "Free Forever: The Contentious Hearing That Made Biddy Mason a Legend" (2022)
- Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, "Biddy Mason: Her Stand for Freedom"
- PBS SoCal, Lost LA, "Biddy Mason and the Founding of Los Angeles"
- Pebbla Wallace, "Biddy Mason: More than Just a Los Angeles Pioneer," Los Angeles City Historical Society (2022)
- National Park Service, "Biddy Mason"
