THE LUCKIEST WOMAN IN AMERICA: That title has to go to a woman born a slave in a Mississippi plantation on August 15, 1818, and freed “forever” by a district court judge in California on January 19, 1856—just 13 ½ months before the landmark Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case that said Negro slaves could not sue for their freedom.
Her name was Bridget “Biddy” Mason, and to this day, she is celebrated as a early California pioneer studied by California fourth graders.
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