Abriea "Abbie" Mitchell was born in 1884 to an African-American woman and German-Jewish man. Raised by her maternal aunt, Mitchell was educated in a convent school.
In 1897, she started taking voice lessons. Just a year later, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Will Marion Cook cast her in a show called Clorindy which was considered at the time the most important musical featuring an all-black cast. Mitchell married Cook a year later and continued to appear in the shows Cook composed. They had two children together.
In 1903, Mitchell appeared in In Dahomey in London which garnered her international acclaim. Mitchell sang “Brownskin Baby Mine” which became one of the most popular songs of the era. She was invited to and did perform for the King and Queen of England at Buckingham Palace.
Mitchell continued performing into the 1930s and also taught at the Tuskegee Institute. She died in 1960.
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Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by writer Heidi Durrowcelebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.
