“Biddy Mason’s adventure started with a walk–about a two-thousand-mile walk from Mississippi to California, via Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time, she was slave . . . .”: That is how I began my chapter on Biddy Mason in my book “Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories About Women Who Made a Difference.” As part of my research, I went to Los Angeles to study & photograph this moving memorial to Biddy Mason, who won her freedom and became a midwife, landowner, church founder, and friend to all. Biddy Mason believed that nothing good comes from keeping “your hand closed”: “The open hand is blessed,” she said, “for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.”
Biddy Mason Memorial, between Broadway and Spring Street at 3rd Street, Los Angeles, California