333 S. Spring St., Los Angeles 90013 (between W. 3rd St. and W. 4th St.)
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born a slave in Georgia in 1818. In 1836, she was purchased by Robert and Rebecca Smith, who later became Mormons and moved to Utah.
In 1851, the Smiths relocated to San Bernardino, California, to start a new Mormon community. Fortunately for Mason, California had been admitted to the union as a free state in 1850. Technically speaking, this meant that all the Smith slaves were free. However, a few years later, when Mason’s owner tried to convince her and the other slaves that moving to Texas—a slave state—would not imperil their freedom, she sought assistance from free African Americans. A lawsuit ensued, and the judge affirmed that Mason was a free person. The ruling was just in time, because the very next year, in 1857, the Dred Scott decision would have affirmed her status as property.
Mason was a skilled midwife, and as a free woman, she invested all her savings in real estate, beginning with her first house at 331 Spring Street. Her home eventually became the site of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, which she helped found, as well as Los Angeles’ first child care center. Mason used much of her wealth to assist other African Americans, particularly recent arrivals, and the poor of all races. Mason died in 1891 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.
Biddy Mason Park features a mural dedicated to Mason and a time line tracing key events in her life. The park itself was developed in 1989 as part of a project called The Power of Place, spearheaded by Dolores Hayden, which was an effort to begin documenting and preserving important sites in Los Angeles that were not associated with great white men and their buildings.
Image: Biddy Mason Park, 2008. Photo by Wendy Cheng.