For more than 100 years, LA’s oldest park has been named after a man who had little connection to the city and its history. Now, Pershing Square is getting a new name: Biddy Mason Park.
The LA City Council voted Friday to rename Pershing Square after Bridget “Biddy” Mason, a formerly enslaved woman who became one of the city’s founders, public servants and philanthropists.
Spearheaded by Jackie Broxton, president of the Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation, the official renaming is the culmination of its campaign to further recognize Mason’s contributions to Los Angeles.
“I grew up in LA, and I was always disturbed that the only thing we ever heard about was Paul Revere, Lexington and Concord or people on the East Coast,” Broxton told The LA Local. “I never heard anything about the people of early Los Angeles.”
Born in Mississippi, Mason was brought to California as an enslaved woman but successfully petitioned for her freedom in 1856, according to the National History Museums of LA County.
After her emancipation, she worked as a midwife, nurse and philanthropist, becoming one of the first Black women to own property in LA, buying land near Pershing Square, the National History Museums of LA County said.
She also co-founded First AME Church, which still stands more than 150 years later as a cornerstone of Black LA’s faith community, as posted on the church’s website.
In her motion to rename Pershing Square, District 14 City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado pointed to Mason’s legacy as an early property owner in the city as well as her work providing food to neighbors in need, and visiting jail inmates and offering them aid.
“Her philanthropy, civic leadership, and commitment to community strengthened the city alongside the economic growth she helped foster,” Jurado said.
It’s not the first time the park in downtown’s historic core has been renamed and reinvented. First set aside in 1866 as a public plaza, it was known as Los Angeles Park, Plaza Abaja and Central Park in its early decades, PBS SoCal reported. In 1918, it was named after General John Pershing as a tribute to his work leading U.S. forces in WWI.
But, as the city motion pointed out, Pershing never even set foot in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Mason’s contributions have often been overlooked. There’s a memorial wall behind a downtown office building, marking the area where Mason lived and worked, but it’s easy to miss unless you know it’s there.
The push to rename Pershing Square for Mason began in 2024 and was championed by then-Councilmember Kevin de León. In July, the petition was reinstated and supported by Jurado and District 10 Councilmember Heather Hutt.
But not everyone agreed with the renaming, with some pointing to the park’s history as a WWI memorial. During the Aug. 25 city council meeting, public commenter Tom Grode said, “There are really powerful ways to honor Biddy Mason without doing anything controversial. Renaming Pershing Square is controversial.”
But to people like Broxton, Mason’s life is simply a part of Los Angeles’ history. She said she founded the nonprofit Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation in 2015 to serve foster children, honoring and extending Mason’s legacy of giving back to the community.
Since then, the organization’s website said it has given more than $700,000 in scholarships to hundreds of foster youth, including six people who have earned Ph. Ds.
“Biddy Mason’s life and legacy sustain our foundation and provide the inspiration for the work we do within the foster care community,” Broxton said.
