In any successful society truth is buried deep…
Biddy Mason (52)
Entrepreneur
Biddy is a fixture of Los Angeles, a unique woman who stands out and can’t be categorised by normal rules. The journey of her life has not been easy: born a slave in Georgia, she came to San Bernardino clutching onto her three children and fearful of losing them. After a difficult legal process she managed to free herself and is now a busy midwife and nurse, a devout and charitable person who brings food for the prisoners in the city gaol.
Affectionately known as Grandma Mason, Biddy is the first black woman to own land in Los Angeles county. Some of this she donates to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in the city – a church she actually founds. Biddy also sets up an elementary school in Los Angeles for black children.
Mason believes that the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, which gave the vote to black men, should also properly speaking provide some benefits – maybe even the vote – to the Chinese community. When she meets Philip Alexander Bell she is shocked to discover that he is opposed to the idea, and also critical of her lack of political commitment for the Black cause. Biddy tells him: “The good you do speaks more for you than the good you talk about.” Later, when Alexander Bell is shot by a paid assassin, Biddy tries everything to save his life by applying her herbal skills and medical expertise. Bell takes two days to die, but he forms a close bond with Biddy that sets him on a peaceful journey to the other side.
Andrew Jackson “AJ” King
Corrupt D.A. Los Angeles
AJ King is a busy man: he’s a member of the Sheriff’s office, a partner of a legal firm in Sacramento, and the District Attorney in Los Angeles. He takes part in the Chinese massacre, during which he accidentally shoots himself, then appears in court for the Coroner’s Inquest with his hand bandaged. There are knowing winks all round.
With a background as a twice-wounded volunteer with the Confederate armies, King certainly has a lot of work to do if he’s every going to fit back into law-abiding society. But he’s not showing any inclination for obedience to the Stars and Stripes.
King runs a clandestine group of armed civilians known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, who maintain close ties with the Ku Klux Klan and spread anti-Unionist sympathies. His political views are tolerated by powerful figures in Los Angeles, such as John Strother Griffith, who wants to keep a lid on the movement and use it for his own ends. King is later involved in the murder of Philip Alexander Bell, acting as a middleman for John Strother Griffith. In season 2 he is brought to justice for this crime, and hanged on charges of murder and sedition.
Philip Alexander Bell (45)
Abolitionist, Publisher
Alexander Bell is a brilliant man who has built a career in spite of constant resistance from the white community, although his comfortable background and good education tends to silence his critics. A true intellectual, a man of fierce conviction.
Initially the publisher of a newspaper in San Francisco, Bell makes his way to Los Angeles in the late 1860’s. A devout Christian, he demonstrates all the usual anti-Chinese sentiments regarding “heathenish practices” and also fears that Chinese immigration is stirring up xenophobia, which spills over into anti-black attitudes. Unexpectedly, Bell is a supporter of Henry Haight, who makes big electoral gains in the late 1860s on a platform of anti-Chinese policies – even though Haight publicly states that black voters are not much different to “monkeys.”
Alexander Bell first comes to Los Angeles to take part in a Democrat election rally – but at the same time he runs into Biddy Mason, who invites him to the inauguration of her chapel. The two of them form what will prove to be a deep and meaningful bond. Alexander Bell is a journalist who in a later age would have been a muckraker. He can’t resist working with Selina King in order to start building up a picture of the operations of the Knights of the Golden Circle. For this he is eventually murdered by a hitman hired by AJ King – though paid for by Griffith.