Whiteballed: True Story Of A Musical Legend

By Michael Hawkridge

This is a story about a young man who wanted to become a singer of soul and gospel music. He began with a gospel group after leaving his hometown in Shreveport, Louisiana. His first stop was Chicago where he joined the gospel group of his dreams.

The first few chapters talk about his childhood and how segregation down south involving public schools, public transportation, the use of restrooms, and restaurants. These were just some of the many inferior accommodations he had to live with. As he continued to seek his goals to become a well-known singer like many of the famous singers he had heard about, he didn't give up on pursuing his dreams.

The book is written to tell a one-man story of how he struggled to live through the '50s and '60s with a dream of being a recorded singer. After many years of fighting to get to where he wanted to be, James E. Phelps was white-balled from the entertainment world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781733153843

Book preview

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Chapter One

Turbulent Times

Shreveport, Louisiana 1932

I, little James Edward Phelps, was born April 2, 1932 at Charity Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. My parents were Johnny and Jarusha Phelps and I was their sixth child to the marriage. Prior to the time I was born, my parents were already familiar with the sounds of the joyful gatherings of my five older brothers and sisters, Roy, Odell, Mildred, Youree Dean and Lee Arthur.

As a young baby being born in the deep South in the early thirties, I like so many more had no idea what kind of surroundings I was about to have to adapt to in those times of poverty and national racism. It was hard enough back in those days trying to raise just one child but raising six all at once, put an extreme amount of pressure on my mother and father.

It was during the days of the Jim Crow era when life and laws were said by whites to be separate but equal for blacks including the use of public facilities. The segregation involving public schools, public transportation, the use of restrooms and also the use of restaurants were just some of the many inferior accommodations that landed in the favor of the whites. I was just about to realize that the words written in the document in the year 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln was to a large degree, just words, "Freedom & Equality" but for whom?

My family was in many ways similar to all the other black families living in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1932. They did what they had to do to make sure that their children were all fed, had a roof over their heads and had clothes on their backs. My mother used to take on little odd jobs that would sometimes last from sun up to sun down just to make sure we had what we needed and sometimes she would do without to make sure that it happened.

Most of the work in this particular place and time for the women were either working in the fields of the white land owners or working inside their homes. For my mom it was cleaning and cooking inside the homes of the local whites and sometimes not even being able to clean her own home before leaving for work. This made it very hard on her mentally, but still, she always knew what her priorities were. Although times were very hard for the black parents during that time, the young and teenage children would forever have their own stories to tell.

As a baby, I like most had help being taken care of by the older siblings. One of the reasons for that was that my mother had to spend so much of her time trying to make ends meet that it was imperative that the older kids pitch in when needed. In many cases, the older brothers and sister Youree Dean did much of the, Do and Don’t Teaching that I required. The children born under the Phelps name were all very close and it was made absolutely clear that no one touched one of family but another Phelps. Having three older brothers at the time and two big sisters surely left me as the baby in a great position as far as future protection was concerned.

Momma Carried the Weight

Not having a chance to even get to know my father Johnny Phelps, I was left fatherless at the young age of two years old. I was told that my father fell sick with tuberculosis and after having surgery; he failed to follow the doctor’s instructions and died soon after. The shock of his death all of a sudden left a void in our family. This was an experience that most boys had an opportunity to share growing up, but for me, my knowledge of a father son relationship never happened.

Without a man around the house, mom continued to carry the torch for all of us. Roy, Odell which I called Ray, Mildred, Youree Dean and Lee Arthur had been a special accommodation to our mother even before the passing of my father. Living in the old rented house and having to put up with the sometimes unexpected headaches and problems associated with that, was no stranger to momma when it came to wearing the pants. She was still struggling being a woman that had recently lost her husband, but having young sons and daughters was unavoidable but surely manageable.

Not knowing how old my father was a the time of his death or what kind of work he actually did prior, would always be somewhat of a mystery to me. I do not know if these things even mattered, but either way, I moved on. Although momma knew God would provide for us, there were still everyday situations that if having my dad around to handle things would have made life much easier. We did have some dealings with my father’s family but as far as I later heard, they did not welcome us anything like my mother’s family did. It was kind of sad for me because I really didn’t know him and it would have been great just to know something about his bloodline.

With the family trying to move on with day to day life as usual, the thought of anything else bad happening to us never set into my family’s way of thinking. For the Phelps family, it just seemed that the worse had already taken place and now mom felt pretty safe that we were about to carry on with our lives.

Approximately one year after the death of my father Johnny Phelps, another tragedy took place. The family suffered the loss of the third oldest child, my sister Mildred, to tuberculosis. Her death happened much too soon in her young life. Mildred and I never really had the chance to get to know each other because I was only around four years old at the time of her death. I really can’t say anything about my sister but I later heard some really great things about her. I’m sure she loved me; I just wish I had known her. Sometimes we have to live with the hand we’re dealt in life no matter whether we understand it or not. As sure as she lived, Mildred’s name was called many times over inside our home no matter where we decided to live. It seemed all too unfair for her not really having a chance to live a full life as children normally do.

The strength of our family’s spiritual foundation carried our acceptance of what had happened. This was another lick that became a test for our family and at the same time it questioned whether we would have the strength to handle it. We didn’t know what mom was feeling when she lost her child, all we knew was that she was a strong woman to continue to provide. It was saddening also based on mom’s daily prayers that she would live long enough to see all her kids become young adults.

My mother would work from sun up to sun down, not leaving much time for the kids. I can remember that almost nightly momma would come into our rooms after working long days just to kiss us. After entering the room, she would say, I love you all, I just don’t want you to forget what I look like and I want you to talk to me so that you’ll know that I’m mom!

No one could have known what her reasons were for doing this but it was something that would always stay in my mind forever. There was always an eerie feeling that this could mean that something bad might someday happen but we still moved on as if everything was going to be okay. Oh we loved her so and there was a special bond between us that we’ll always remember. Our mother was very concerned about us and also how we interacted with other children. In other words she did not want us to be mistreated by anyone or any other kind of harm come to us. Having to carry the weight of the father and mother placed mom in a very difficult position but she would do what she had to do to safeguard us.

There were many times when momma would take me to work with her and although I was just a little guy, I was allowed to do work in the yards of the whites she worked for. Working for White families’ during those days was scary enough in itself not to exclude having to be all too careful about what you did or allowed to come out of your mouth. When it came to having one of your small children with you on your job, it just raised the nerve glass that much more.

One of the most horrifying memories that would always stick with me was when the time would come to eat around the work place. This by no means was anything like being at home with people that really cared for each other, it was more like having to feel different and extremely cautious, but most of the time, even less than human. This was a nightmare, I would be very hungry from working and my mom would come to the porch to hand me food on the outside. It was against their racial rules during that time for her to actually hand me food in my hands. In order for me to get a chance to eat, mom would have to place my food down on the porch as someone would for a dog and then I could walk up after she left and eat it. God forbid had she been caught giving me food the way any human being deserved.

We were treated less favorable than they treated their dogs. What pain for any human being to have to carry around with them after seeing their small child treated as less than an animal and there was nothing my mother could do about it? To have the strength to continue working for someone that felt so less of you and your young seven-year old child showed that my mom was all too determined to make sure that one day I would learn from these times. All the things that happened during that time were building up inside me so that one day I would be sure to travel different roads and never end up again trapped in this kind of web.

It wasn’t long after I was in school and being the baby was no longer new to me. A new spark of life was inducted into our family. On May 28, 1939, the rest of the brothers, my sister and I were placed in the position of becoming babysitters with the birth of twin sisters, Joyce and Mack Lee This was such a happy time for me because the others were older and moving on doing more adult type things. There were times though I would find myself getting a little lonesome, it then became easier for me to deal with because now I had the twins. The baby girls really gave me so much to look forward to. I just loved them and most of all, I was their big brother

My older sister Youree Dean had already gotten married and moved not far from the family across town. Starting to raise her own family kept her pretty busy but when she wanted to see the family, she didn’t have too far to go. As usual, Youree Dean always made herself welcome as if she had never left. All this just gave me more time to enjoy not being the baby anymore.

We lived on Park Avenue there in Shreveport, and very close by the house, there was this ditch. I went out there one day and tried to jump over it and messed around and fell in. After being helped out of the ditch, I found out that I had slit my wrist open and my mom had to have me rushed to the hospital. It wasn’t very far to the hospital, maybe three blocks or so. Man, I was crying and carrying on until I looked at my two older brothers Roy and Ray who were knocking on the windows at the hospital because they would not let them come inside to see me. After seeing them at the window, I forgot about what the doctor was doing. These guys were my big brothers and I felt I had to look tough in front of them. I was alright after that; I just felt I always had to prove I was a man. We moved quite a bit after that happened. It wasn’t long before I was outside running around and doing what I normally did to have fun.

Before we went to school in the morning, we would not have anything but some white bread and some sugar to eat. We made sugar syrup by spraying water onto the sugar and that was our meal. Times were very hard for us, I can’t say that enough but we did what we had to do to make ends meet. I was just a little guy but the one thing I was all too proud of was the fact that I loved making my own money and being able to assist in supporting my mother and family whenever I could.

Things like sports and having fun like normal kids, I never had a chance to experience. Since I can remember, I’ve had to be a man and work even as a very young child. Other than working around the homes of the people my mother worked for, I would also work in the Ice House carrying 100 lb. blocks of ice on my back. Carrying that ice was no joke, but I knew I had to be able to do the job or they could easily find some- one else to take my place. Mom’s fear of me injuring my back from the heavy lifting at the Ice House had her worried about me but I was very strong and never really worried about getting hurt.

Shining shoes was also a task that I would take on when striving to stand on my own two feet. When it came to popping a rag and throwing a hot shine on a fresh pair of shoes, I was the man for the job. I gave everything I did my all. No matter what I did, I knew that there was always someone else that would love to make my change so I had to give it my best. Nothing was free and anything a family reaped was only from the sweat of their own hands and labor. I never really knew what it was like to be a child so this was all I knew. There is one thing I can say for sure and that is that at a very young age, I was surely getting a firsthand lesson in Southern economics.

My Ticket Out

The one thing that I was truly depending on to be my ticket out of Shreveport was a career in singing. I really don’t mean to sound arrogant, I have to say that being as young as I was, boy I really could carry a tune! As far as I can remember, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do was sing, it was my daily prayer. I prayed for years for the things I wanted and needed to happen in my life. I chose what may have been a strange place for many but my praying place was the outhouse. It really didn’t matter that it was the outhouse because it was the only place I could talk with the Lord without anyone else being there or bothering me. Every day of my life, I would go out there and talk with the Lord. I used to pray to Him that I wanted to become a national known singer, but I never dreamed that I would become an international singer. I used to sit on the steps at my mom’s house and I would start singing and people would come by and actually give me money to sing. This is something you see today on television, but for me, this was not a movie, it was my life! I spent most of my time singing and writing little tunes for me to sing. The dream of becoming a star was something that I and very few others could see happening for me. At the time, my younger sisters hadn’t a clue about what I was trying to do being that they were so young.

My sister Joyce and twin sister Mack Lee were next to me and then later born into the family was my youngest sister Rose Mary (Rosie). Now I was really beginning to feel like a big brother after having three younger sisters around the home; so this just gave me a special sense of happiness. For mom, it was taking a very little bit of time off of work and then right back to making a living for her family. This all made our history very similar because after the birth of Rosie, this made my mom to have had nine children and her mother also had nine children.

As time moved on, I continued to sing and work my little odd jobs, but unfortunately my life would come to a sudden stopping point once again. It appeared as though the Ole Death Demon could find no other home to visit but our home. All of a sudden in 1943, we had to deal with the terrifying reality that little sister Mack Lee after taking sick, died at the young age of four years old. For me, the loss of another sister, but for my mother, the loss of another child! Again our family was