The housing environment in Los Angeles was segregated not by formal law in the same way as some other American cities, but by informal practice, real estate custom, and social pressure. The Spring Street location where Mason established herself was not a neighborhood specifically designated for Black residents; it was simply where she was able to buy and where she chose to live. The proximity to the commercial center of the city gave her property its value, but it also placed her and her community in direct adjacency to the white commercial and civic establishment.
The churches, schools, and community organizations that Mason supported and helped build were not supplements to a functioning public infrastructure; they were largely replacements for a public infrastructure that did not adequately serve Black residents. The daycare center she founded existed because Black children needed care and the city’s public institutions were not providing it on equal terms. The school she established for Black children existed because public education was limited and unequally distributed. The traveler’s aid center existed because newly arrived Black people in Los Angeles faced specific vulnerabilities that existing institutions did not address.
## The Naming Question
Biddy Mason’s surname is itself a historical question. The surname “Mason” does not appear to be derived from any of her enslavers’ surnames in a direct way. Robert Mays Smith was her enslaver, not someone named Mason. The name appears to have been a family name from Georgia that she carried through her slavery, possibly derived from an earlier enslaver or from some other source.