SYMHC Classics: Moms Mabley

Summary

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Stuff You Missed in History Class – “Moms Mabley”

Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson & Holly Fry
Date: April 4, 2026 (originally aired February 9, 2022)
Theme: The life, legacy, and complex history of pioneering comedian Moms Mabley

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Episode Overview

In this classics episode, Holly and Tracy explore the inspiring and layered biography of Moms Mabley—born Loretta Mary Aiken—one of the founding figures of American stand-up comedy. The hosts delve into her six-decade-long career, the personal and professional obstacles she surmounted, her profound influence on comedy, and her unique position as a Black woman navigating the entertainment world of the early to mid-20th century. The episode recognizes both the laughter Mabley brought and the societal issues she addressed through her humor.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Introduction and Cultural Reference (02:29–04:25)

• Tracy shares her discovery of Moms Mabley via “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” in which the comedian was portrayed by Wanda Sykes.
• Mabley’s crucial role as a founder of stand-up comedy in the US is established, alongside the note that much of her personal life remains mysterious or contradictory in records.

2. Mabley's Early Life & Family Background (04:25–10:45)

• Birth and Age Ambiguity: Mabley’s birthdate is inconsistently reported (1894, 1897, 1899), and she herself was reticent about her age.
• Family:
  • Parents: James (“Jim”) & Mary Magdalene Smith Aiken; Jim was biracial and raised as free despite being born during slavery.
  • The family lived in Brevard, NC, and contrary to some bleak accounts, Mabley expressed deep affection for her mountain home.
• Father’s Achievements and Death: Jim Aiken was a successful Black businessman and community leader; he died in a tragic firefighting accident when Loretta was about 12.
  • “He was the most widely known colored man in western North Carolina.” — Brevard News (08:08)
• Mother’s Fate: Contrary to sensational retellings, Tracy clarifies that Mary's purported death by truck as a young woman is inaccurate; Mary lived until at least 1946–47.

3. Early Trauma and Ambiguous Childhood Events (10:45–14:18)

• Mabley endured several traumas, including rape and separation from children in her early teens; accounts of what happened to her children differ and remain unclear.
• Possible forced marriage and court case involving "seduction under promise of marriage."
• Heart-wrenching Studs Terkel Interview Excerpt: Mabley described working as a wet nurse and the emotional pain of separating from children—both her own and those she cared for.

  “…I would tell my baby daughter, Lucretia, not to cry because she was stronger than baby Lois…” — Tracy (11:56)

4. Leaving Home & Early Show Business (17:50–23:05)

• Encouraged by her grandmother’s religious advice (“put God in front and go ahead”), Loretta leaves Brevard, first to Cleveland with her mother, later entering show business.
• Show Biz Beginnings: Loretta is inspired to pursue the stage after praying for guidance while pregnant and struggling.

  “I prayed for guidance and heard a voice that said, ‘Go on the stage.’” — Tracy recounting Mabley’s words (18:52)

• Started professionally with the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA), commonly called “Tough on Black Actors.”
  • Learned essential skills: “Anyone who got to the end of the circuit had a solid foundation…” (19:43)
  • Supported by performers Butterbeans & Susie, she moved on to higher-paying gigs and the Chitlin Circuit, adopting the name Jackie Mabley.

5. Adopting ‘Moms’ and Her Unique Act (22:24–25:57)

• Origin of Name: Assorted stories about “Jackie Mabley”—either from a boyfriend, fiancé, or self-invention; change motivated by desire for family anonymity.
• Stage Persona: She invented the wise, matronly “Moms” character—based on her grandmother and always played as much older than her real age.

  “Even though I was young, they would always bring their problems to me to settle.” — Moms Mabley (24:15)

• Comedy Style: Blurred lines in gender and sexuality; jokes relied on double entendre, and often explored her (comic) attraction to young men.

6. Queerness and Community (25:57–27:04)

• Gender/Sexuality: Behind the scenes, Mabley openly had relationships with women.

  “We never called Moms a homosexual. That word never fit her. We never called her gay. We called her Mr. Moms.” — Norma Miller, 2013 documentary (25:57)

• Performance Spaces: Moms worked in LGBTQ-friendly venues, including the Eubanki Club, and shared bills with openly queer performers.

7. Breakthroughs in Comedy (30:43–33:59)

• Firsts:
  • First woman to headline solo at the Apollo Theater (1939).
  • The only Black woman to do solo stand-up for decades.
• Broadway and Race Films: Appeared in all-Black-cast productions (“Fast and Furious,” “Blackberries of 1932,” “Swingin’ the Dream”) and in “race films” like Emperor Jones and Killer Diller.
• Apollo Theater: Booked often, eventually earning up to $10,000/week, becoming “the funniest woman in the world.”

  “She constantly changed up her act so that would continue to appeal to returning members of the audience.” — Tracy (33:34)

8. Civil Rights and Social Commentary (33:59–37:10)

• Comedy moved to sharper social satire by the 1950s–60s: racism, sexism, and politics were routine targets.

  “…I would give a certain Southern governor a job as ambassador to the Congo and let him go crazy looking for a men’s restroom with ‘white’ on it.” — Moms Mabley (as quoted by Tracy, 34:45)

• Raised funds for civil rights causes and attended the 1966 White House Conference on Civil Rights.

9. Recording and Media Legacy (1960s–1970s) (36:04–39:38)

• Comedy Albums: Released 20 albums, with Mom’s Mabley at the UN (1961) hitting #16 on the Billboard charts, the highest for any woman for a decade.
• Television Appearances: First TV appearance in 1967, Harry Belafonte’s A Time for Laughter. Subsequently appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, Flip Wilson, Smothers Brothers, Carol Burnett, and more, reaching wider white audiences.
• Music: 1969 cover of “Abraham, Martin and John” was a Billboard Top 40 hit.
• Political Advocacy: Active anti-Vietnam War voice, supported Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign.

10. Later Years, Death, and Enduring Influence (39:38–end)

• Final TV appearance: 1974 Grammy Awards with Kris Kristofferson (playfully flirting, classic Moms style).
• Starred in Amazing Grace; suffered a heart attack during filming but returned to complete it.
• Died May 23, 1975, in White Plains, NY.
  • Funeral attended by 500+; Apollo marquee read “Harlem Mourns. Moms Mabley.”

  “If she had been white, she'd have been known 50 years before.” — Dick Gregory, eulogy (39:38)

• Legacy: Paved the way for Black comedians and women in comedy; directly cited by Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Wanda Sykes, Arsenio Hall, Whoopi Goldberg, and more.

  “There’s not a comedian in show business that hasn’t stole material from Moms not white or Black. As fast as they steal them, God gives me some more.” — Moms Mabley (40:32)

• Tributes: Documentary (Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley), stage plays (Clarice Taylor and Alice Childress’s Moms), inspiration for fictional characters (Nutty Professor’s Granny Clump).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On her father:
  “He was the most widely known colored man in western North Carolina.” — Brevard News (08:08)
• Religious conviction and guidance:
  “Put God in front and go ahead.” — Grandma’s advice, recounted by Tracy (17:50)
• Guiding principle for comedy:
  “Even though I was young, they would always bring their problems to me to settle.” — Moms Mabley (24:15)
• On racism via comedy:
  “I would give a certain Southern governor a job as ambassador to the Congo and let him go crazy looking for a men's restroom with white on it.” — Moms Mabley on her 1963 album (34:45)
• Legacy:
  “If she had been white, she’d have been known 50 years before.” — Dick Gregory, eulogy (39:38)
  “There’s not a comedian in show business that hasn’t stole material from Moms not white or Black. As fast as they steal them, God gives me some more.” — Moms Mabley (40:32)

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Highlights by Timestamp

• Brevard childhood, family history: 04:25–10:45
• Early trauma and ambiguous events: 10:45–14:18
• Religious and familial encouragement: 17:50
• Joining the TOBA/Chitlin Circuit and stage name: 19:43–22:24
• Development of stage persona and parental role: 23:05–24:37
• Gender, and sexuality—insider view: 25:57
• Groundbreaking solo act at Apollo: 30:43
• Space for Black art and developing stand-up: 32:00–33:34
• Comedy as activism—sharpest satire: 33:59–37:10
• Crossover to mainstream success: 36:04–39:04
• Final years and eulogies: 39:38–40:32

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Tone & Style

The hosts maintain a warm, respectful, and curious tone, interweaving admiration with historically nuanced skepticism about contradictory sources. They also make space for laughs, sharing how Moms Mabley’s jokes still elicit genuine delight and encourage listeners to seek out videos to experience her comedy firsthand.

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For Listeners New to Moms Mabley

This episode is a deep dive not only into the career of a comedic legend but also into the challenges she faced as a Black, queer woman pioneer. Her unwavering authenticity, loving mentorship, and shrewd social insight have left an indelible mark on American entertainment. Her story is—by turns—inspirational, complex, and still sadly underappreciated.

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Recommended next step: Watch some of Moms Mabley’s performances on YouTube or check out the Whoopi Goldberg documentary for a sense of her enduring comedic genius!

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

This originally came out on February 9th, 2022. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I really enjoy the TV show the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you are not familiar with this show, it is about a Jewish woman named Midge Maisel who tries to build a career as a comedian, starting at the end of the 1950s. There are various performers who appear as characters on this show. Some of them have real world inspirations, but they are fictional characters. And there are other ones, like Lenny Bruce, who are fictionalized representations of a real person. In an episode from the show's third season, Mrs. Maisel performs at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. And ahead of her on stage is Mom's Mabley, who is played wonderfully by Wanda Sykes. If my own age and background were a little different, or maybe if I had grown up watching reruns of old variety shows, I would have already known who this was, but I did not. So I did what I always do when a new performer shows up on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I Googled. So Moms Mabley, yes, was a real person, but I had some doubts about being able to do this episode because her career lasted more than six decades. She was hugely influential. She inspired so many comedians and other performers who came after her. She's really one of the founders of standup comedy in the United States. But outside of her work, a lot of the details of her life are kind of a mystery. And there are some contradictory accounts of a particularly traumatic part of her early life. Heads up that talking about those contradictions is that's gonna involve some discussion of rape and other trauma. And I also think if I were part of an adoption triad, there's some part of this that I would probably also find particularly troubling.

[Holly Fry]

Moms Mabley was born Loretta Mary Aiken on March 19, probably 1897. In the 1900s census, her age is given as three. But in the earliest years of her career, when people might have thought she was too young to be out on her own, she gave her birth year as 1894. Later in her life, she was not forthcoming about her age at all. And to add another layer of confusion, her grave marker lists her date of birth as March 19, 1899.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Loretta's parents were James and Mary Magdalene Smith Aiken. James, who was known as Jim, was the son of Jane Aiken hall, and his father was her enslaver. Jim was born in 1861, and normally that would have meant he was considered enslaved from his birth, but it seems that his father considered him to be free. According to Moms Mabley's later accounts, his mother made a particular point of telling both him and Loretta that they had been born free. Loretta also had a great grandmother, Harriet Smith, who she described as Cherokee, who was a big part of her early life. And a big influence on her.

[Holly Fry]

The family lived in Brevard, North Carolina, which is southwest of Asheville, on the edge of what is now Pisgah National Forest. In 1900, it had a population of under 600 people. It is easy to imagine that a black family in a small town in the North Carolina mountains in the early 20th century was living in severe poverty. And a lot of current descriptions of Mom's, Mabley's imply that her early childhood was one of extreme hardship and that she fled Brevard and never looked back.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But in interviews later in her life, Mabley talked about western North Carolina with just enormous fondness. Studs Terkel recorded an oral history with her in 1961, and she did joke that you had to take a buggy from Asheville to get to Brevard. But she also called it one of the greatest and healthiest places on earth. She spoke of her grandmother and her great grandmother with deep, deep love and respect. Interviews that other people gave after her death also described her making frequent visits home and maintaining her connection to the North Carolina mountains.

[Holly Fry]

She also described her father, Jim Aiken, as a great man. He was a successful businessman who had started out selling gingerbread and cider and worked his way up to owning a store along with a bakery slash cafe and a barber shop that catered to white customers. He also ran a dray service which carried both passengers and freight along with carrying the mail into and out of town.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Although Mabley's oral testimony describes Brevard as not being segregated, it did have segregated schools. Her father was a big part of getting a new school for black children established in Brevard in early 1909. And a newspaper article about that effort noted his involvement and then said, quote, what Jim undertakes generally goes.

[Holly Fry]

I love that quote. Tragically, though, Jim Aiken died when loretta was about 12. In addition to everything we just mentioned, he was a volunteer firefighter at this point. Most fire trucks were chemical engines. They carried tanks of bicarbonate of soda and acid, which were added to water on the scene to produce a stream of fire suppressant. Something went wrong while Aiken was responding to a call in 1909, and the tank exploded while he was trying to attach the hose. Jim was killed instantly and multiple other firefighters were seriously injured.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Jim Akin's death was a profound loss for the entire community of Brevard. His funeral was held at the White First Baptist Church because that was the biggest church in the area. An editorial in the French Broad Hustler described him as, quote, one colored man who left the world better than he found it, the Brevard News wrote, quote, the death of James P. Aiken is a distinct loss to our town. He was the most widely known colored man in western North Carolina. He was a successful and enterprising businessman whose store on Main street is well patronized. He was a member of the Baptist Church and several benevolent societies, was a member of the fire department where William E. Breese Jr. Was chief, and was always among the first to respond to the call of the fire bell, and one of the hardest workers at every fire in the history of the town. He was in every way a responsible Negro, honest, energetic, industrious and reliable. He had a wide influence among the colored race in this mountain section, besides having many friends among the white people, all of whom will be shocked to learn of his sudden death.

[Holly Fry]

Obviously, racism is threaded through both of these quotes with the idea that Jim Akin was exceptional considering his race, but they do also speak to how prominent he was within the community.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Loretta's mother, Mary, was the executor of her late husband's estate. She also took over the store while Loretta's grandmother helped to take care of her and her siblings. They did have a big family. She was one of at least nine children. Mary eventually got married again to a man named George Parton, and from that point her name appeared in advertisements for the store as Mary Aiken Parton. It appears that she kept the store going until 1912 or 1913, at which point she sold the building to Parton and the couple moved away from Brevard, first to Washington, D.C. and then to Cleveland, Ohio.

[Holly Fry]

A lot of more recent articles about Mom's Mabley say that her mother was killed just a couple of years after her father after being hit by a truck while crossing the street on Christmas Day. That's all very sensational, but it does not seem to be correct. Mary and George are listed in the 1940 census as living in Cleveland, with George's occupation at the time listed as waiter. It is possible that Mary was killed after being hit by a truck. Tracy was not able to confirm her cause of death, but if she was, that happened in 1946 or 1947 and not when Loretta was still a young girl.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

However, in addition to her father's death, Loretta's life took a traumatic turn when she was still quite young. Multiple sources say that she was raped by two different men before she turned 14, and that both times she became pregnant and arranged adoptions for her children, or someone arranged those adoptions for her. Other accounts, though, say that it wasn't really the arrangement of a formal adoption, that Loretta had left her children in the care of two women who later moved away and disappeared, and she didn't get to see her children again until they were adults.

[Holly Fry]

Yet other accounts say that Loretta's father or stepfather either forced her to marry a much older man or pressured her to do so, and that is why she left home as a teen. But there's no documentation of a marriage, although there is some reporting in Brevard News about a court case in 1913 that was State versus Bunyan Mills. This was a seduction under promise of marriage case in which the prosecuting witness was named Loretta Aiken. This case was introduced in August but dismissed in September when it was found that there had been no formal marriage contract.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In our conversation with Studs Terkel, Moms Mabley also talked about working as a wet nurse in Asheville at the age of just 14 and having to deprive her own child of milk so that she would have enough to feed the baby that she was nursing. And this recording is truly heartbreaking, with Mabley talking about telling her baby daughter, who she calls Lucretia, not to cry because she was stronger than baby Lois, who she was being paid to care for, so Lois needed more to eat. Mabley talked about loving Lois like her own baby and how much it hurt not to know what happened to her after her employment had ended. This interview stresses that Lois started to feel like her own child, but at least to me, it doesn't seem to imply that she had also lost contact with her daughter Lucretia. Mabley also talked in multiple interviews about being pregnant and having her baby with her at the start of her career.

[Holly Fry]

But when Moms mabley died in 1975, obituaries and memorials listed four children among her survivors, but none of them are named as Lucretia or are old enough to have been born when moms was 14. Yvonne, the oldest daughter, is described as 58 at the time of her mother's death. That means that her mother would have been about 18 when she was born. Yvonne's younger siblings were listed as Christine, Bonnie and Charles, with some sources noting that Charles was her brother's child who she adopted. So some accounts conclude that Yvonne and Christine were the children who were reunited with Mabley as adults, and others conclude that those were just two different people.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, there are also a bunch of family trees that list Christine's middle name as Lucheria, which is not the same as Lucretia, but is close enough that has made people wonder, like, was this the same baby? Was she calling the baby by a middle name? And like the spelling has gotten garbled somewhere? If so, that means the years are also garbled. There's a bunch that's unclear, but what. Whatever the exact circumstances are, the young Loretta Mary Akin left home at the encouragement of her grandmother who thought that she should see the world beyond Brevard. And we will get to that after a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

In that 1961 oral history with Studs Terkel, Moms Mabley talked about her family's deep religious faith. When her grandmother sometimes this is also she says it was her great grandmother, it's a little blurred. Encouraged her to leave Brevard. She told her to, quote, put God in front and go ahead. And this became a motto for Moms Mabley's life. The timeline for that life is tricky to piece together though, because there are plenty of things like advertisements for her performances, but otherwise, a lot of the time there's not a lot of concrete documentation. Sometimes Mabley's interviews contradict each other or they contradict the documentation that does exist. So things like census records. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that she was intentionally deceptive with any of this. She gave a lot of these interviews in the last couple of decades of her life, and I know I don't remember exactly when things happened in my childhood versus other events. So who knows?

[Holly Fry]

It does seem that after her mother moved to Cleveland, Moms Mabley, still known at that time as Loretta Aiken, went there to join her. She was pregnant at that time as the result of a rape, and she had planned to go from Cleveland to Detroit to terminate that pregnancy. But something told her not to. She told Studs Terkel that when she was 15, trying to work out a way to support herself and her child, she prayed for guidance and heard a voice that said, quote, go on the stage.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In Cleveland, Loretta lived with a pastor and his family, and the house next door was a boarding house that was home to a lot of performers. One of them, Bonnie Belle Drew, helped her get a start in show business. Mabley's daughter Bonnie, who was born in 1920, was named Bonnie after Bonnie Bel Drew.

[Holly Fry]

Loretta Aiken got a job with the Theater Owners Booking association, which was a vaudeville circuit for black performers. It was established in the 1920s with venues primarily in the Southern and Midwestern states. Its performers gave it nicknames like Tough on black actors. The schedules were very grueling, the pay was low. But Mabley later said that anyone who got to the end of the circuit had a solid foundation in all kinds of fundamentals, including singing, dancing, and comedy. This was in part because every performer had to learn every part in case somebody got sick or injured or just dropped out of the show. Other performers who got their start on this circuit included Gertrude Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker, and Sammy Davis Jr. When he was still a child.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In her later life, Moms Mabley told a story about being sick while working this circuit, and an older fellow performer named Leroy came into her room to check on her. Police raided the hotel after an unrelated altercation and searched all of the rooms. And when Leroy was found in the room of the teenage Loretta Akin, they were forced to get married. But according to Mabley, there was no marriage license, no formal paperwork associated with this marriage, and Leroy was more like a father figure to her than a spouse.

[Holly Fry]

Loretta was traveling through deeply segregated parts of the US Many of which were also well known for racist violence. She was earning only about $14 a week, which was not enough to support herself and her child. So her mother was sending money to help with food and lodging. But then another pair of black performers took notice of her and helped her move into higher paying gigs. Those were Jody and Susie Edwards, AKA Butterbeans and Susie, who were a song and dance duo. Their act was very comedic with a lot of double entendre. Their best known song was I want a Hot Dog for my role.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You can find recordings of this on the Internet if you want. Honestly, if you've never heard any of Mom's Mabley's comedy, just pause this and go to YouTube.

[Holly Fry]

So funny.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Extremely funny. At multiple points while doing research, I stopped what I was doing and watched some moms Mabley anyway. Loretta moved from the Theater Owners Booking association, where most of the venues were white owned, to the Chitlin Circuit, which was kind of its successor. Those theaters were primarily black owned and operated, and sometime during this period, she started performing under the name of Jackie Mabley.

[Holly Fry]

Mabley herself told multiple stories about where this name came from. One was that Jack Mabley had been a boyfriend and that quote, he took a lot off me and the least I could do was take his name. Another was that the Jackie part was her own invention. But Mabley was the last name of a young man she had been engaged to. But that didn't work out because he was a Canadian and neither of them wanted to move to the other country.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Regardless, her motivation for changing her name seems to have been that her oldest brother thought her stage career was disgracing the family. Not all of her family shared that opinion, though. She had a younger brother, Eddie Parton, who helped write some of her material.

[Holly Fry]

She was being billed as Jackie Mabley by 1925, and she had established Jackie as an onstage character. She was in her twenties, but she imagined this character as in her sixties, patterned after her grandmother Jane as Jackie Mabley. She would sing, dance and tell jokes and stories. She eventually made her way to New York where she was featured at Connie's Inn in Harlem after it opened in 1923. Like the Cotton Club, where Mabley also went on to perform, Connie's Inn featured black performers for an all white audience.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As her reputation grew, Mabley kept getting better and more lucrative bookings. She also claimed that she discovered Pearl Bailey during these years. She said in a 1974 interview, quote, I taught Pearl Bailey everything she knows. She was a blues singer and I said, girl, you're funny. You should be a comedienne.

[Holly Fry]

While Mabley's stage career initially included a mix of singing, dancing and comedy, over time she was focused more and more on stand up before that term was even coined. In her stage Persona of Jackie Mabley, she helped establish the conventions of stand up comedy as an art form.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She was billed as Jackie Mabley for several years before other performers gave her the name of Moms. In her own words, quote, even though I was young, they would always bring their problems to me to settle. She was a mothering presence. She was someone that other performers could turn to for support and who would help people get money for rent or a ticket home when they needed it.

[Holly Fry]

Moms. Mabley blurred a lot of lines with her gender and sexuality, both on and off stage, in her onstage Persona, she wore a baggy house dress, sagging socks, slippers, or beat up house shoes, and a floppy hat. Often these clothes aggressively did not go together. She had a stooped posture on the stage, and as she got older and started wearing dentures, she would perform with her teeth out. This Persona wasn't exactly androgynous. The character was a woman who went by Moms. But it was blurry enough that various people wrote into newspaper question and answer columns over the course of her career to ask if Moms Mabley was a man or a woman.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As far as her appearance and her demeanor went, Moms Mabley's stage Persona could come off as almost sexless, but at the same time, her comedy could be very risque. She did not swear nothing was sexually graphic in a way that if somebody said, that's really risque like today, you would imagine something quite different. There was a lot of double entendre, though, and one of Mom's running themes was about her attraction to young men and the uselessness of old men, unless an old man was bringing her a message from a young man.

[Holly Fry]

Off stage, people who performed with Mabley have talked about her openly having relationships with other women. In some photos, she's shown as elegantly attired in a dress and pearls, and in others, she's in handsome suits that are more androgynous or almost aggressively masculine. In the 2013 documentary Whoopi Goldberg Presents Mom's Mabley, dancer and comedian Norma Miller said, quote, we never called Moms a homosexual. That word never fit her. We never called her gay. We called her Mr. Moms.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This carried over to her comedy and to the venues where she performed as well. For example, In April of 1934, the Eubanki Club opened on the former site of Connie's Inn. One of its frequent headline acts was Gladys Bentley, who was an openly lesbian performer who wore men's attire and was sometimes backed up by drag queens. The Eubanki Club became known for both performers and clientele who we would probably describe as LGBTQ today. And one of its performers was Moms Mabley.

[Holly Fry]

We will get into Moms Mabley's later career after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

A Lot of Moms Mabley's comedy career was really unique. For the time, most women working in comedy or on the stage at all were as part of a duo with a man, but Mabley was a solo Act. In 1939, she became the first woman to headline at the Apollo Theater as a solo comedian. For decades, she was really the only black woman doing solo standup. And again, this started before that term was even coined.

[Holly Fry]

She was also appearing on Broadway in the 1930s, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. At this point, there were several Broadway productions with all black casts, but they often had white directors and producers and they were tailored for a white audience. But the shows Mabley appeared in were developed and directed by black people, or they were otherwise focused on the black experience in general. These shows did not run for long. They are often described as not appealing to white audiences and critics.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1931, she was in Fast and Furious, a colored review in 37 scenes at the New Yorker Theater. In addition to being part of the cast, Mabley worked with author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston to develop some of the sketches, and Hurston appeared in this show as well.

[Holly Fry]

Then she was in Max Rudnick's Blackberries of 1932, a sepia musical review. This ran at Liberty Theater west of Broadway on 42nd street, and it ran for 25 performances.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Then there was Swing in the Dream in 1939, which I am just desperately curious about. This was a swing musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a cast that included Butterfly, McQueen and Louis Armstrong. It ran for 13 performances. Reviews of it were not great, and I cannot imagine why. This sounds incredible to me. I mean, I can't imagine why. The answer why is racism. But I'm still this sounds incredible to me. Most of the script has been lost, which is one of the reasons I'm just desperately curious about it.

[Holly Fry]

We'll put it on the time machine list. It's one of the stops we'll make. Mabley had some small film roles during These same years, like her Broadway roles, these were in films that were made by and for black people, a genre that became known as race films. One of these was Emperor Jones, which came out in 1933 starring musician, actor and activist Paul Robeson. Her film work continued into the 1940s, including playing her comedic Persona in Killer Diller, which came out in 1947. In 1948, she played a boarding house matron in Boarding House Blues, in which the boarding house's residents, who are all performers, put on a show to save Moms and her boarding house from bankruptcy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The thing that she became the most known for during these years was her comedy on stage. She booked longer and longer contracts at the Apollo, ultimately appearing there more than any other entertainer and earning as much as $10,000 a week. She constantly changed up her act so that would continue to appeal to returning members of the audience. And soon she was nicknamed the funniest woman in world.

[Holly Fry]

As the civil rights movement evolved in the 1950s and 60s, Mabley's comedy started to include more and more social satire and commentary about racism, sexism and politics. This continued as white audiences became more aware of her with the evolution of comedy albums. Mabley recorded her first album, Funniest Woman Alive, before a live audience in Chicago in 1960, and it was released by Chess Records. It was a hit, and she went on to record 19 more comedy albums during her career, many of which made the billboard 200. Her 1961 Mom's Mabley at the UN hit number 16 on the billboard charts, which was the highest ranking comedy album by a woman. And that record stood for the next decade.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As Mabley became more well known to white audiences. She used her disarming stage Persona to make social and political commentary that probably would have been impossible without it. Her sets included fictional conversations with world leaders where she set them straight on various wrongs. She made pointed observations about the realities of racism and segregation. For example, on her 1963 album I Got Something to Tell you, she said, quote, you know, the first thing I would do if I was president? I would give a certain Southern governor a job as ambassador to the Congo and let him go crazy looking for a men's restroom with white on it.

[Holly Fry]

Throughout the 1960s, she also did benefit performances to raise money for causes like Southern Students Freedom Fund, which provided aid for students who had been arrested for their civil rights activism. She did a show at the Apollo Theater to raise money for the March on Washington, and she sold photographs during some of her shows to raise money for the Selma to Montgomery March. She was also a member of the naacp, and she attended the White House Conference on civil rights in 1966. That inspired her album Mom's Mabley at the White House. She also gave multiple performances at prisons all over New York, including Sing Sing and Rikers Island.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Mabley's television debut was also connected to all of this. In 1967, Harry Belafonte produced A Time for Laughter, a look at Negro humor in America. Belafonte described this as an effort to both demonstrate black people's humanity for the white world and to inspire joy and laughter within the black community. That was the first time Mom's Mabley was on tv.

[Holly Fry]

Mabley had long talked about seeing her audiences as her children, and when she started doing television, she said, quote, the only difference I found when I started doing TV was that instead of looking at the audience as my children, I looked at the world as my children. She appeared on multiple televised comedy programs and variety shows, including the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the Carol Burnett show, the Ed Sullivan show, and the Flip Wilson Show. These television appearances introduced her to a larger white audience than her albums had, and that fed into bookings at venues like the Kennedy Center. But at that point, she'd been performing and famous among black audiences for 50 years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1969, Mom's Mabley's cover of Abraham, Martin and John, which is the song about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. John F. Kennedy and Bobby Ken, hit number 35 on the Billboard charts. She performed this song as Moms, but it was a completely serious and audibly grief stricken performance.

[Holly Fry]

In the 1970s, Mabley's comedy included her opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. And in a 1972 interview, she said, quote, I've shed many a tear over those boys. I wanted to go over there, but the government said I was too old. But if I'd gone over there, I'd have said, come on children, let's go home.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Also in 1972, she supported past podcast subject Shirley Chisholm's election campaign and appeared at a Stars for shirley fundraiser.

[Holly Fry]

In 1974, Moms Mabley made her last TV appearance as a presenter at the Grammy Awards with Kris Kristofferson. At the time, Kristofferson was 38, and the two of them played up Mom's attraction to young men. Mabley asked him the name of the song he wrote, and after he replied, help me make it through the night, answering, quote, if you can make it for half an hour, it'll be all right with Me. Their banter went on for a full five minutes before announcing the award that went to Gladys Knight and the Pips. And Mabley took her teeth out in the middle of it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's amazing. You can see this on YouTube.

[Holly Fry]

Also so good.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Also in 1974, Mabley had her first lead in a feature film. This was called Amazing Grace, and she played Grace Teasdale Grimes. It's about a woman who goes up against a corrupt politician, and its posters read, quote, who's coming to put an end to dirty tricks, crooked politicians and lion mayors. Who? America's most glamorous, sexiest female superstar. Mom's Mabley. It's about time.

[Holly Fry]

Mabley had a heart attack during the production for this film. She returned to the set after having a pacemaker implanted, and she used her publicity for the film to promote voting. But this was her last appearance on screen. She died on May 23, 1975, in White Plains, New York, at the age of about 78. She was survived by four children, five grandchildren, two sisters and three brothers, including her brother Eddie Parton, who had helped write some of her material. She had spent her last years living with her daughter Bonnie.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At least 500 people attended her funeral, and the marquee at the Apollo Theater was changed to read Harlem Mourns. Moms Mabley. Comedian Dick Gregory gave a eulogy in which he said that if she had been white, she'd have been known 50 years before.

[Holly Fry]

Today, Moms Mabley is known as one of the founders of American stand up comedy. A lot of later comedians have cited her as an inspiration, including Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Wanda Sykes, Arsen hall, and Whoopi Goldberg, who, as we said, made a documentary about moms in 2013, originally called I Got Something to Tell youl before it was picked up by HBO. In the 1980s, Clarice Taylor worked with playwright Alice Childress to write a play called Moms, which debuted at the Astor place theater in 1987. The character of Granny Clump in Eddie Murphy's the Nutty professor is also a tribute to her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And in Moms Mabley's own words, her influence was more pervasive than all of that. Quote, there's not a comedian in show business that hasn't stole material from moms not white or black. As fast as they steal them, God gives me some more. I love her genius. And as I said, I had multiple times just stopped what I was doing and watched some. I watched moms mainly on YouTube and I also watched Wanda Sykes appearance as her on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel I watched that three or four additional more times while working on it, so yeah, I think a lot of her comedy definitely holds up. I have not listened every to every single album she has ever done, so I don't think I can make a blanket statement that every Mom's Mabley joke has weathered the years well, but a lot of it is still hilarious. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters, but when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-100-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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