Mable Hillery - It's So Hard (2024)

An occasional member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mable Hillery was less well known that its leaders, Big John Davis or Bessie Jones, although like Jones, she enjoyed a solo career (albeit brief). The spelling of her name has caused some confusion. She used "Mable Hillery" in her correspondence and on her one issued LP, "It's So Hard to Be A Nigger" (Xtra, 1968), and it's this spelling that appears in the New York Times obituary published on Saturday, May 1, 1976. Step It Down, co-written by Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), uses Mabel Hillary, although this was likely resorting to standard spelling. The record of her death in the New York City Department of Health reads "Mabel Hillery." In any case, this talented and forceful woman, who died tragically young, deserves to be commemorated, not only as a performer, but also as a songwriter, educator, and political activist.

She as born July 22, 1929 in LaGrange, Troup County, just southwest of Atlanta, Georgia. She married Will Adams in 1950 and moved to Brunswick, Georgia, near St. Simons in the Georgia Sea Islands, about 1960. In 1961 Mable, a contralto, joined the group recently renamed the Georgia Sea Island Singers, performing with John Davis, the community leader; Bessie Jones, the song leader; Peter Davis, Emma Lee Ramsey, Alberta Ramsey, and Henry Morrison.