The Needle and Thread of Biddy Mason

In 1856, Briddy Mason walked out of a Los Angeles courtroom a free woman. Born into slavery in Mississippi, she had spent decades tending the sick, delivering babies, and mending what was torn — both fabric and flesh. Now free, she worked as a nurse and midwife, saving every dollar she could. Within a decade, she became one of the first Black women to own property in Los Angeles.

But Biddy Mason did not hoard what the Almighty had placed in her hands. She opened her home at 331 South Spring Street to anyone in need. She paid grocery bills for families who had nothing. She visited prisoners in the county jail, bringing food and clothing. She founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, gathering a congregation in her living room. When floods devastated the city in the 1880s, she organized relief for stranded families regardless of race.

When Biddy Mason died in 1891, the mourners who gathered could have held up — like the widows of Joppa holding Tabitha's tunics — the tangible evidence of a life spent in relentless generosity. Grocery receipts. Donated land. A church that still stands today.

Acts 9:36-43 reminds us that Dorcas was "always doing good and helping the poor." Her works testified so loudly that even death could not silence them. The same God who heard a roomful of grieving widows still honors the faithful labor of hands stretched open toward the least of these.