Biddy Mason Memorial Park at 333 South Spring Street occupies the site of her original home. The park and the de Bretteville installation mark the location where she established her household, organized the founding meetings of First AME, and conducted the community life that defined her decades in the city.
In recent years, her name has been proposed for the renaming of Pershing Square, a central public space in downtown Los Angeles. A motion by then-Councilmember Kevin de León stalled in committee; the measure was reintroduced by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and subsequently approved by the city council. If the renaming proceeds, one of the central public spaces of the city she helped build will bear her name.
She is honored in the California Social Work Hall of Distinction, a recognition that places her philanthropic and community work within the professional history of social services.
## What Her Story Documents
Biddy Mason’s life is documented in fragments: the 1848 census records for Utah Territory, the 1856 court records, the 1860 freedom document, the 1866 deed for Spring Street, later tax records and property transactions, the 1904 memorial window dedication, the oral transmissions that reached her great-granddaughter Gladys Owens Smith.
These fragments are more substantial than what survives for many enslaved people. The legal proceedings generated records. The property transactions generated records. The church she helped found maintained its own history. This relative abundance of documentation is partly a function of her legal engagement with California institutions and partly a function of her economic prominence: people with property generated paper trails in ways that poor people did not.