Monday, October 26, 2026

Historian Kevin Waite Brings His Biography of Biddy Mason to Vroman’s

The author discusses and signs “The Boundless Biddy Mason” on Thursday evening on Colorado Boulevard

Historian Kevin Waite will discuss and sign “The Boundless Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American West” on Thursday at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena.

It tells how Biddy Mason crossed the continent, broke free from slavery and built Black Los Angeles. Born in bondage, Mason endured a forced migration of three thousand miles on foot from Georgia to California. She and her daughters labored in slavery in California for five years before launching an emancipation suit in 1856.

Mason went on to become a healer, philanthropist, church builder and real estate entrepreneur whose commercial properties stood at what became known as the “Wall Street of the West.” She died in 1891.

The book carries readers from the cotton South to metropolitan California, and through the Civil War, Reconstruction and the dawn of Jim Crow. It is published by the University of California Press, which released it in October 2026, and runs 456 pages.

Waite is the Anne Stark Watson and Chester Watson Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas. His first book, “West of Slavery,” won the 2022 Wiley-Silver Prize and was shortlisted for three other awards, including the Lincoln Prize. His writing appears in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, National Geographic and The New Republic.

Vroman’s Bookstore was founded in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman, who sold his own book collection to raise the capital to open it. It hosts more than 400 free community events a year.

The store asks attendees to purchase the book from Vroman’s, noting that those purchases make events like this possible.

Kevin Waite discusses & signs The Boundless Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American West will run on Thursday, October 29 at 7 p.m. Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-10-29/kevin-waite.