Biddy Mason was an African American born into slavery. At a young age, she was torn away from her parents and sold repeatedly, from slaveowner to slaveowner. Eventually she ended up on the plantation of a man called Robert Smith, a Mormon living in Mississippi
When church leaders put out the call for their followers to relocate to the west of America, Robert Smith set about moving his entire family and everything he owned over a gruelling two-thousand-mile trek, Biddy carried her youngest daughter on her back while she herded cattle, prepared meals, and looked after animals.
A few years later, Robert decided to move again, this time to California While she was there, Biddy made friends with black people who weren’t slaves, and who explained that California was a free state. While they were standing within that state’s limits, no person was the property of another person. That made Robert Smith nervous, and he tried to escape with his slaves to Texas, But Biddy’s friends went to the sheriff’s office and a party rode out to stop Robert Smith before he could get away.
On January 19th 1856, Biddy carned freedom for herself and her extended family of thirteen.
She began work as a nurse, gaining a reputation for her encyclopaedic knowledge of herbal remedies When patients couldn’t pay, she gave her services for free. When they could she saved every penny.
After ten years, Biddy bought two pieces of land and became the first black woman in Los Angeles to do so.
Biddy accumulated more and more wealth, always using it to help those around her. She fed the poor, let orphans live in her house, visited jails, and opened a school for black children.
If you hold your hand closed Biddy said, ‘nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives
Almost a hundred years after she died, November 16th was declared Biddy Mason Day in Los Angeles.