The Formerly Enslaved Woman Who Built a Legacy of Light

In 1856, Biddy Mason walked out of a Los Angeles courtroom a free woman. She had been enslaved for decades, carried across the American frontier on foot, and owned nothing but her faith in the Almighty. Within ten years, she had saved enough from her work as a midwife and nurse to purchase property on Spring Street — becoming one of the first Black women to own land in Los Angeles.

But Biddy Mason did not hoard what God provided. She opened her home to the hungry. She funded an elementary school for Black children. She visited prisoners in the local jail, bringing food and Scripture. When devastating floods struck the city in the 1880s, she paid grocery bills for families of every race who had lost everything. She co-founded First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest Black church in Los Angeles, which still stands today.

Biddy Mason had every reason to clutch tightly what she earned. She knew poverty and cruelty intimately. Yet she scattered her resources freely, just as the psalmist describes: "They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor."

Psalm 112 paints the portrait of someone who fears the Lord and finds delight in His commands — someone generous, gracious, and unshaken by bad news. Biddy Mason lived that portrait. Her trust was not in her circumstances but in Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. And her righteousness has endured for generations.