Arizona sun., 1948-02-20
E|ks To Burn Mortgage On $95, 900 Home, Sunday
Facts About Negro Ristory---
First Among Settlers in West
By MASON ROBERTSON.

1t probably won't be given much
emphasis in the complicated legal
talk now going on before the Unit
ed States Supreme Court over re-
Strictive covenants, but one of the
great sore spots of any such discus
sions, as far as a Negro is concern
ed, is the implication that the Ne
gro is, somehow, an "intruder......
crowding in where he's not wanted
and doesn't belong"
The American Negro is properly
proud of the fact that his people
have a just claim to belong" any
where under the American flag. In
many cases they can lay claim to a
better right than most of those
who protest their presence.
A Negro was with Christopher
Columbus when he discovered the
new land. A Negro was with Peary
when, in 1909, he discovered the
North Pole. In nearly every hiStor-
ical event which took place in Am
erica between those two discover
les, spaced so far apart in time and
distance you'll find Negroes play
ed part.
They were with Washington at
Valley Forge and in every u. S.
battle since. Negro labor built the
South. Negroes were among the
earliest bands of fur trappers and
explorers who pushed our borders
West and North. George Bush was
one of the first Americans to set
tie in Oregon-after first having
helped Andrew Jackson fight the
Battle of New Orleans. Washing
ton became a territory, separating
from Oregon in 1858. George Wash
ington, a Negro, reached there two
years later. His farm became Cen
tralia, Wash.
National Negro History Week,
this year, falls in with the centen-
nial celebration of two of the
younger of the United States: Cali
fornia and Utah. And Negroes were
there at the beginning, too.
Present day Utah is we'll known
for it's jimcrowd practices, but
when Brigham Young first came to
that salty section of land, a Negro
was one of his band.
And among the obituaries of the
Society of California Pioneers is
that of Alvin A. Coffey, a Negro
who panned gold in Shasta county
in 1849.
A slave when he was first
brought to California, Coffey was
taken back East when his masters
health failed. He returned again in
the middle fifties, this time alone.
He mined the gold that bought his
own freedom. He died in Beulah,
Alameda county, in 1902.
Although Coffey is the only Ne
gro officially member of the So
ciety of California Pioneers, there
were many others with equal claim
to such "a distinction. Jacob Dodson
was a member of Captain John Z.
Fremont's expedition which sur
veyed California in the early for
ties. James Duff, who later settled
in Mariposa county and lived to be
SO years old, was said to have come
West with Fremont even earlier.
These two, with John Grider, Joe
McAfee, Charles G. Gaines and Bill
ly CASTOR, were members of the
Bear Flag party. And, just to round
out the picture, when Vallejo helo
a parade in 1914, honoring the
Bear Flag party, the sole known
survivor was John Grider, Negro,
guest of honor.
One of the most colorful and
well-remembered pioneers OF the
southern part of the state is
Grandma" Biddy Mason, a slave
who was brought to San Bernar-
dino in 1851. A few years later,
when her master decided to move
to Texas, the sheriff of Los Ang-
les issued a writ preventing him
from taking slaves from the free"
state of California.
Biddy settled in Los Angeles, to-
gether with her three daughters.
At that time there were only eight
white families living in the area.
AS usual, there was a Negro al
ready there-Robert Owens, a llV-
ery-stable keeper.
Owens helped Biddy and her
daughters get settled. Biddy went
to work as a nurse, and almost at
once began to buy property in the
vicinity-property which today is
worth countless millions.
AS her wealth grew, Biddy used
it lavishly to help the unfortunates
who came to her attention. People
in jails, hospitsls, and people just
::down on their luck" were sure
of helping hand. With time, the
benevolence of Grandma Mason
became a heartwarming legend. 1t
was a commonplace for her to
practice such gestures as one mace