In this open-access article supporting Black History Month, Stephen Bourne explores the early life of Mabel Mercer, a Black British singer who became the toast of the USA. Stephen Bourne is an historian of Black Britain. His best-known book is Black Poppies – Britain’s Black Community and the Great War (The History Press, 2019). 

As an adopted American, Mabel may have been one of the most influential singers of the twentieth century and a recipient of America’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, but she was born in Burton upon Trent, on 3 February 1900. Mabel has been the subject of two autobiographies by Americans, but her biographers only partially succeed in documenting Mabel’s early life and career in British music halls before the United States became her permanent home in 1941. In this article, I will attempt to fill in a few more gaps in Mabel’s early life...