Meet Biddy Mason, a Black Woman Who Helped Build Los Angeles

When you think of the people who built Los Angeles, the names that most likely jump to mind — William Mulholland, the Chandlers — are often those of white men. It is not surprising, and it is not unusual among U.S. cities.

That’s why, when I heard Laura Atkins, a Berkeley, California-based children’s book author, mention Bridge Mason, known as Biddy, on an episode of the podcast East Bay Yesterday, I took note.

Mason, she said, had been born enslaved, won her freedom in a California court in the mid-1850s and eventually became a prominent downtown LA landowner — not to mention the growing metropolis’s richest woman.

She organized the city’s first African Methodist Episcopal church and was a philanthropist.

It is Black History Month, so I have been thinking about what it means to honor the legacies of people whom history has traditionally left out.

Atkins and Arisa White, a poet, have written a book about Mason’s life, “Biddy Mason Speaks Up,” part of a series about civil rights leaders. So I asked them how they decided to write about her and about different ways of thinking about historical figures.

“A lot of what we thought about was the idea of the kind of linear, heroic narrative, where there’s one singular person who saves the day, versus more of a feminist recovery project,” White said. “We have to amass Biddy Mason’s story by pulling through different threads.”

The book, which is illustrated by Laura Freeman, alternates between a story told from Mason’s perspective and pages that are filled with definitions of words like “power,” “race” and “westward expansion,” as well as timelines and discussion questions for readers about how those themes play out in their own lives.

On one page, the authors ask: “Have you ever been taken away from someone you love?”

On another: “What does freedom mean to you?”

White said she was also excited to highlight a different way of building wealth. Mason worked as a midwife and a healer who used herbal remedies her enslaved grandmother had taught her.

Among her clients were some of LA’s richest residents, including Pio Pico, the last governor of Mexican California.

“It’s bringing to life a different kind of intelligence that I don’t think young readers access when they think about enslaved people,” she said.

Atkins said she knew that the idea of reframing history through a feminist, collectivist lens might sound a little too, well, Berkeley for a lot of educators.

But she said she had been heartened by the response.

“We’ve gotten some real love from people out in the world and appreciation for the way it empowers students to engage,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.