From Slave to Philanthropist

Biddy Mason walked from Mississippi to California behind her slave master's wagon train, herding cattle, cooking meals and caring for her three daughters over the thousands of miles. She couldn't know she was walking into history and would leave behind an inspiring example of the grit of the early American Black woman. While California was a “free state,” in those pre-Civil War days, it allowed slaveholders to bring their slaves while they were “passing through.” But Biddy's master hu