Called, Justified, Glorified, and Gay: The Fictional Memoirs of Gospel Singer, Josephus Hezekiah Carson

By John Edmonds

Meet Josephus Hezekiah Carson a born again, spirit filled, Christian man called to sing the gospel. There is something else worthy of note about Josephus. Josephus Carson is a same gender loving man queer, gay, homosexual. Journey with him as he travels the gospel highway, rubbing shoulders with the likes of James Cleveland, Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson, among others. Journey with him as he explores the wild world of Sex, Alcohol, and Gospel Music. Journey with him as he finds love and success in a world filled with hate and disappointment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 24, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462825325

John Edmonds

John Edmonds boasts a musical career that spans more than four decades, hundreds of cities, forty states, and fifteen countries on six continents. With twelve recorded albums to his credit, he has taken his traditionally black gospel sounds to such diverse venues as West Hollywood’s Studio One Back Lot and the Smithsonian Institute Festival of Folklore in Washington, D.C. Edmonds studied journalism and creative writing at the Western Kentucky University. He is freelance writer for www.gbmnews.com. Called, Justified, Glorified, and Gay is his first novel.

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Copyright © 2008 by John Edmonds.

Cover Design by Edward Marchan/John Edmonds.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

PROLOGUE

PART 1

Too Young

READY OR NOT, HERE I COME

DADDY, MAMA, WILLIAM, AND ME

NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

I GOT GOOD RELIGION

JESUS MADE ME WHO I AM

THIS CAN’T BE LOVE

PART 2

It’s Real

I’M GETTIN’ THE MUSIC IN ME

MAHALIA, THE QUEEN

WORKING FOR MY JESUS

WHEN YOU SEE ME COMING

ON THE ROAD FOR JESUS

PART 3

Coming Out the Wilderness

THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

NOW AND THEN, HE’LL SAY SOMETHING WONDERFUL

PART 4

Oh, the Joy that Came to Me

A NEW HOME, A NEW GROUP, AND A NEW IDOL

A NEW LOVE

THE BUBBLE BURSTS

MY TWO SONS

CHRISTMAS—1964

PART 5

We’ll See Who Comes Out the Winner

SHOWTIME

LOOKING BACK

WEDDING BELLS

CONFESSION’S GOOD FOR THE SOUL

HEALED MY BODY, NOW I CAN TELL

DISNEYLAND AND THE WARD SINGERS

PART 6

California, Here We Come

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

ON THE ROAD FOR JESUS

SOON AS MY FEET STRIKE L.A.

RICHARD JAMES, PERSONAL MANAGER

DR. Z. Z. FAITH

HERE COMES THE STORM

MOTHER WARD AND CLARA

USO/HOLLYWOOD OVERSEAS COMMITTEE

WE’RE MAKING A RECORD

PROPHET JIMMY JIMISON

GOOD NEWS, THE CHARIOT’S A-COMING

PART 7

I’m Leaving On a Jet Plane

EVIL’S PRESENT ON EVERY HAND

PATRICE CHRISTINE

THE FAMOUS GOLDEN BEAR

THULE AIR BASE, GREENLAND

MACK, THE BEAUTIFUL

MOVING ON

THE SONG HAS ENDED

PART 8

I’m On the Battlefield for My Lord

MISTY, WATER-COLORED MEMORIES

ANOTHER DAY’S JOURNEY

WHEN I THINK OF HOME

SNOWBOUND

MY GIFT IS MY SONG AND THIS ONE’S FOR YOU

I HAVE NO RIGHT

A NIGHT AT THE PUSSY CAT THEATRE

WE MAY NEVER MEET AGAIN

AND THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN

MAKING A RECORD (AGAIN)

THE CROWN PRINCE OF GOSPEL

SERVING THE LORD WILL PAY OFF AFTER WHILE

PART 9

I Made It

PACKING UP GETTING READY TO GO

TYLER, TEXAS AND BILLIE HENRY BROWN

FLYING HIGH LIKE A BIRD UP IN THE SKY

ROUGHING IT

ARE THEY SHOOTING AT US?

OUT AND ABOUT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

RACIAL TENSION

WELL DONE, THY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT

I MADE IT

IN MEMORY OF

FREDERICK O’NEAL LOWE

And

WILLIAM ANDRE CULLOM

Guys, this is for you!

Idealism comes in blacks and whites. Realism comes in varying shades of gray.

John Edmonds

Honor, glory, and special kudos to the Holy Trinity (The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) for the talents with which I have been blessed and for allowing my talents to make room for me. Even with my glory, I will sing and give praise to you.

Thanks also to God for blessing me with the most wonderful parents ever created—Ashur Jewel Edmonds and Addie Jane Frierson Edmonds—who indulged, supported, and nourished my every dream.

Thanks also to family members, friends, and lovers who lovingly encouraged, pushed, and prodded me onward. It takes an entire village to develop a career. Thank you!!!

PROLOGUE

1951:

I want to see your thing—your peter, he said to me. Can I see it?

I don’t know, I said shyly. What if somebody comes in here and catches us?

They won’t, he said. Come on, Josephus. Let me see it. Please!!!

Okay, then, I said as I unbuttoned my pants. I don’t know why I was so reluctant. I knew that this was the reason Danny had planned for us to come into the school rest room that day. He had told me to raise my hand first and ask our teacher to be excused. He had told me that he would wait a few minutes and do the same. This was a plan he had devised several days earlier—a plan we would enact many, many times during the time we were first graders.

Slowly, I pulled out my six-year-old thing.

Danny didn’t say a word. He simply reached across the space that separated us in the school lavatory and touched me—touched my thing. He smiled the biggest grin. He smiled so hard I thought his dimples were going to pop off his face.

I want to see your booty, I whispered.

Yeah? he asked as he pulled his pants down and showed me his six-year-old booty. It was now my turn to grin as I looked at him. I’ll show you.

I was amazed that his buttocks were the same caramel color as his face. I wanted so badly to touch him, but I did not have the nerve.

We gotta go, he said pulling up his pants. Miss Brown will come looking for us in a minute if we don’t hurry back to the classroom."

Nine years later—1960:

Don’t use the ruler, he said. Use your hand.

Okay, I whispered.

Danny was seated at one of the drawing desks in the industrial arts room at Gordon Street School. We were in the room alone. We had been working on the floor plan of a house we had jointly designed. I had pulled his shirt out of the back of his pants. I could see his back and his underwear. Teasingly, I had slid my ruler down into the back of his pants inside his undershorts.

What are you waiting for? he turned and asked. He was not smiling now. He wasn’t joking or playing around. He was serious.

I placed the ruler on the desk. Then, I slowly let my fingers slip down in the back of Danny’s pants—inside his underwear. For the first time in my fifteen years, I actually felt another male ass. I had never touched anything so wonderful before. Danny’s crevice was warmer than I had expected, almost hot. I felt like I had stuck my hand into a hot cup of coffee. His skin felt soft, moist and damp. My hands begin to shake. My dick was painfully hard. Danny’s breathing became heavy as did my own. He continued to work on the architectural drawing. I looked over his shoulder, and I could see his erection pushing upward through his pants.

The door to the industrial arts room opened and I quickly jerked my hand out of Danny’s pants. Very subtly, I let my fingers run across my upper lip and under my nose. I became very lightheaded.

PART 1

Too Young

. . . And yet we’re not too young to know

This love will last though years may go

And then some day they may recall

We were not too young at all

READY OR NOT, HERE I COME

I really don’t remember a lot about the day I made my entrance into this world. You see, it’s all still quite hazy now—hazy like the cloud of mist that would hover over Wandering River and its surrounding banks at the break of an autumn day. (Wandering River is the waterway whose banks form the northeast boundary of Boat Landing, Kentucky.) However, after so many years of hearing the story told and retold by my maternal grandmother—Sarah Kelly, the events of the day are embedded into my memory forever. It was in Sarah Kelly’s house and bed that I made my debut.

The Kelly house was impressive (not because of any special architectural designs or devices) simply because it was a big damned house. In fact, it was the largest house in the three hundred block of Maple Street. My daddy would always say, I don’t see anything special about it! It looks just like a big ol’ cracker box to me! It did lack the grace and cuteness of the two bedroom home that he had purchased for his small family (Mama, William, and me), but my grandmother’s house was big!—at least by the standards of our neighborhood. According to Sarah Kelly, she liked things big—big fine cars, big fine houses, and big fine men!

My brother, William Edward (spoken as one word) was seven years old at the time of this particular entrance of mine into this physical realm called earth. He sat in our grandmother’s huge antiseptically white kitchen at the eating-table across from our mother’s sister, Lucretia (I think her last name was Payne at the time.). The two ate noiselessly from two large bowls containing homemade vegetable soup laden with peas, carrots, potatoes, corn, diced onions and celery, green beans, tomatoes, and huge chunks of stew beef. William Edward (He didn’t become simply William until he went off to college several years later.) sensed that he was supposed to be quiet even though no one had specifically told him to do so. Lucretia kept spooning soup into her mouth so as not to have to talk, answer any questions, or give any explanations as to what was going on.

The time was around three thirty or four o’clock in the afternoon. The late afternoon winter sun was beginning to be unsharing with its natural light, yet it was too early in the day to turn the kitchen lights on. On this particular March afternoon, all four doors leading into the kitchen were purposely closed.

Suddenly, a shrill, piercing scream rattled the two story house at 325 Maple Street. Even the walls of the sealed-in kitchen could not keep out the sound. William Edward dropped his spoon, spilling the soup meant for his mouth. He looked up at our aunt like a lion cub might look up to a lioness upon hearing an elephant’s bleat for the first time.

Lucretia grabbed her nephew’s little hand and ran pulling him behind her. They ran into the breakfast room, and then out onto the back porch.

Where are we going? little William asked. He was out of breath.

We’re just going out in the backyard to see what we can see! Lucretia quickly led the boy down the steps and into the backyard.

The answer evidently pacified my brother. He passively followed our aunt without asking anymore questions. (In those days, children pretty much accepted without question whatever they were told by an adult.) The two self-displaced refugees left the backyard and went into the alley. They walked aimlessly back and forth until whatever was happening finally happened.

Inside the house, Dr. Walter Richard Hedge was hurriedly climbing the front stairs taking two steps at a time. He was struggling to put his white coat on and carry his little black bag at the same time. He followed the sounds of the screams and cries into the front bedroom.

The child is almost here, my grandmother scolded angrily as she followed the doctor up the stairs, through the parlor, and into her bedroom. If you’d been any later we wouldn’t have needed you!

I can only imagine what the good doctor wanted to say to Sarah Kelly. However, he only clamped his lips tightly together, smiled slightly, and went about his business of assisting me as I made my grand and early entrance into this world. Actually, I wasn’t due until the end of March. Mama had actually taught school the day before I was born. My father had gone on to work the day of my birth thinking there was no need for him to be home.

The day was the Second of March. The year was nineteen hundred and forty-five.

This was the year Franklin Roosevelt died and was replaced by Harry Truman as the United States President. The famous war correspondent/reporter/journalist Ernie Pyle also died. On Broadway, the big hit was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Jim Crow laws still prevailed throughout the country especially in Southeastern U.S.A. (Hence, the reason I was born in my grandmother’s home and not in the local hospital.) In 1945 (and even much later in time), colored people were not granted entrance into the Boat Landing/Wilson County Hospital except as janitors, maids, or cooks.

DADDY, MAMA, WILLIAM, AND ME

The house I grew up in—located at 313 Walnut Street—was just one block over from the house where I was born. In fact, you could walk out my grandmother’s front door, cross the street, take a short cut between two houses, follow the alley way north and end up at the back door of my house. This was a common ‘passageway’ for all my family members (pet dogs included) as well as some of the neighbors.

According to family lore, when I was about three or four years old, I wandered away from home and found my way through the alley and between the two neighbors’ houses. I suppose I had the good sense (I’d like to think so anyway.) not to cross the street. (Maple Street was the main highway going through Boat Landing connecting important points north and south.) I simply stood there and screamed MaKelly! as loudly as I could. She just happened to be in the yard working and heard my yell. She made her way to the sidewalk in front of the home, checked out the northbound and southbound traffic on the street, then motioned for me to come on across. She was thrilled by the fact that I had decided on my own to come visit her, so much so that she told that story over and over again for years to come.

Mama and Daddy were furious, however. I wasn’t spanked (I never was spanked as a child.) or punished. Rather, Mama and Daddy made a deal with me: I was never to leave our yard unless I let one or both of my parents know. And if I decided to visit MaKelly again, I had to promise never to cross Maple Street on my own. I would have to stand there and yell for my grandmother to come out of the house and tell me when it was safe to cross. Quite naturally, there were many times when the lady would not hear me. But the occurrence was so common, that all the neighbors were aware of the pattern. So if MaKelly didn’t hear me, Miss Sally Rowe (her neighbor on the right) would come to her front door and tell me it was okay to cross. And if it wasn’t Miss Rowe, then it would be her son, Too-Much-Wine (the community drunk). And if it wasn’t him, then it would be Mrs. Dinkins (Miss Sally’s sister), or Rev. J. D. Smith (our pastor at Maple Street Baptist Church), or perhaps any grownup who just happened to be passing up or down the street. This ritual went on for way too many years. Of course, I really did know by the age of ten how to cross the street by myself. My parents didn’t seem to think so, however.

Daddy was especially proud of our home on Walnut Street. After all, Alton Harrison Carson had bought it before I was born, and he had paid cash for it—$1,000! His salary as a bellhop at the prestigious Stern Hotel could not have allowed him to accomplish such a feat. He told me in later years (just before he died) that he had had to do some things that were not always within the realm of his moral conscious and neither within the perimeters of the law in order to purchase our home.

Whatever the patrons at the hotel wanted, I would get for them—liquor, drugs, women—whatever, he told me. I did what I had to do! I couldn’t have bought that house on the salary the hotel was paying me!

The front yard of our home was small and encased in a dense hedgerow. A towering maple tree provided shade and served as a natural conduit for the much needed summer breezes on a hot August day. In the winter, it provided leaf-raking jobs for William and me. There was a damson tree and a lilac bush and a flower bed. We’d eat the tart damsons in the late summer. In early spring, the lilac bush would bloom in gorgeous arrays of purple and lavender. Also in the spring, Mama would plant zinnias and marigolds in the circular flower bed. And they would bloom all summer and into the fall until the first frost would occur and cut them down right in the prime of all their glory.

I always thought of my parents as the best parents any child could ask for. Mama and Daddy were a special team. You see, when I was about five months old, I’m told, Daddy was stricken with crippling arthritis. Over the next few years, his spine would become paralyzed from the neck down. He could no longer maintain his job as head bellhop at the Stern Hotel. Both Mama’s sister (Lucretia) and her mother (MaKelly) told her to divorce Daddy and send him back to his parents so they could take care of him. This was simply out of the question for my mother. This was one time that Gloria Adele Carson would not give in to the demands of her domineering, controlling mother.

I promised your father for richer or poorer in sickness and in health, she told me in later years. I couldn’t go back on my wedding vows. I love my mother and my sister, but I love my husband, too!

So they went against all the odds. Daddy was never able to get any income from Social Security or public assistance; we lived off the teaching salary of my mother (and her work as a domestic in private homes and local motels during the summer months). The couple simply reversed roles—Adele Carson was the breadwinner; Harrison Carson was the househusband. And it worked. Daddy had breakfast ready every morning for all of us before Mama went off to teach and William and I went off to school. When William and I came home for lunch, Daddy had lunch prepared. When all of us came home in the afternoon, our dinner was ready to eat! But even though my mother was the single source of income from the family, she never tried to usurp my father’s position in the household. Any family decisions—major or minor—were made jointly by the two of them.

They were a beautiful couple—spiritually and physically.

I remember one occasion when some friends were visiting from Indianapolis. Some sort of family outing was planned for this particular day. I was already in the car with my favorite aunt—Daddy’s sister, Mary. The wife of the visiting couple was in the car also. Daddy was standing on the porch at 313 Walnut Street waiting for Mama.

The lady (I think her name was Lou.) said to Aunt Mary, My Lord, that sure is a handsome man!

Is she talking about my Daddy? I thought to myself.

Girl, you should have seen him before—you know, before he got crippled, my aunt told her. He was the best looking man in Boat Landing—colored or white!

She is talking about Daddy! I thought. I looked at him for the first time, as it were, through the eyes of perhaps a stranger. For the very first time, I realized that my Daddy was fine!

Damn! she said. He sho’ is fine!

I laughed inside keeping a straight face like I was not hearing a word of their conversation. I wondered if my mother thought Daddy was fine, too. Surely, she must, I thought.

But I can see how Gloria Adele hooked him, the lady named Lou continued. She’s a beautiful woman.

I thought, Wow, so my Mama is beautiful too!

"And a good woman, too, Aunt Mary continued. She sure has stuck by my brother! She’s a good wife and mother." My aunt became choked with her own emotions.

I really had a good feeling for the rest of that day. I have a Mama and Daddy that are pretty, I thought. Pretty, beautiful, and good-looking. I had never realized this before that eventful uneventful day.

My brother William was a different story—I always thought he was cute, handsome, and the greatest thing created since salt. Again, according to family lore, my first spoken words were not Da Da or Ma Ma, but Bruh (my babbling pronunciation of brother). In the very early years of my life, we slept together—even bathed together. But, we rarely played together. He preferred the company of kids his own age rather than that of a tag-along little brother who happened to be seven years his junior. Of course, I always wanted to go with him, and Mama and Daddy made sure I did—especially on those Sunday afternoon walks with his buddies and their girlfriends. He always got even by playing all sorts of pranks on me—like coercing me into drinking hot sauce (It tastes just like tomato ketchup, he had said.) or sticking shit up my nose once while we were taking a bath. Once, he and our cousin George were going to tar and feather me as a game. They even went so far as to get the tar in my hair. When he was about to be punished, stupid me started crying and pleading for Mama to have mercy on him. I loved him dearly, in spite of him. I loved him so much that on the night he left home to go to college, I cried very quietly in my bed—all night long.

In retrospect, I can see that I really was the perpetual thorn in his side. I wasn’t old enough to be his running buddy or pal. Neither was I old enough to help him with some of his duties around the house (grass cutting, window washing, bringing in coal for the heating stove in the early years). I was, however, old enough to be in his way and cramp his style with his buddies and girl friends. And I was old enough to usurp the limelight and attention that he had held a monopoly on for seven years. I envied him for those seven years, however. Those were seven long years that I had not been able to spend with my parents. Those were seven years that I had not been privileged to know my father when he was probably at the most physically vibrant point in his life. My brother was blessed with seven more years with Mama and Daddy than I. That’s what happens when you’re the baby. But as those of you know (who happen to be the last born), there are still a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of advantages to being the baby.

Our back yard was a small scale fantasy land for me. Trees, bushes, vines provided the perfect setting for war games, games of cowboys and Indians, duels between Captain Hook and Peter Pan, and whatever else my imaginative mind could conjure up. I especially loved the spring and summer. On the south fence was a sprawling rambling rose bush which produced full pale pink roses every month until the first frost fell. The blooms were so pale that the morning sun sometimes made them appear white. Just beyond the rose bush stood a mulberry tree providing treats for the robins, cardinals, and sparrows that inhabited the neighborhood. William and I were always told that the berries were poisonous, so we were not allowed to eat them. (I really don’t think this was true; it never killed any of the birds!) On the other side of the tree was a grape arbor. The grapes that weren’t eaten by us Carson boys and our neighborhood chums went toward making jelly and most importantly wine for the winter.

Next to the grape arbor was a wooden building called the coal house. In the 40’s and into the early 50’s, the building did serve as a storage house for coal. This was when coal was our heating source. After electrical heating units were installed, the coal house became a storage bin for yard and garden tools—lawn mowers, rakes, shovels, hoes, etc. Later, in the 60’s, the shelter was converted into a garage and tool shed. Behind this building was a driveway leading to a gate that opened out on the back alley.

An umbrella-like maple tree stood pretty much in the center of the back yard providing ample shade to the house and yard. More shade was supplied by a low hanging peach tree and a stately damson tree producing more fruits for winter canning and winemaking. A circular flower bed bordered by broken bricks and rocks and concrete sat between the house and the maple tree. It contained continuously blooming zinnias and marigolds planted by my mother each spring. On the other side of the maple tree was a bed of orange and brown flag flowers which bloomed all summer. The flowers’ border was formed by the thick growth of green pointed leaves from which the stemmed blooms protruded.

The largest portion of the back yard was the vegetable garden which grew along side the driveway leading to the alley. A wooden framed swing separated the main yard from the garden area. The garden, like the blooming poinsettias in the living room window, was also a neighborhood showcase. It was my Daddy’s second pride and joy (I was his first—well, William and I were.). Because of his crippling arthritis, Daddy could only supervise the placement of seeds and plants. But once the vegetables began to grow, Daddy could be seen almost every day on his crutches tilling the soil with his hoe along the rows of green beans, onions, squash, cabbage, radishes, carrots, corn, etc. Mama, William, and I had to do the hand weeding in the areas that Daddy couldn’t reach with his hoe. In the winter, the garden was leveled and made into a small football playing field for William and his friends (but definitely not for me!).

Our home was located in a section of Boat Landing called Shake-Rag. Several stories floated around the community as to how it came to be called Shake-Rag. Many of the black women of the community took in laundry on the weekends in order to supplement their family’s income, and Monday was always wash day (even in our household). On a sunny Monday morning, back yards all over the area were filled with shirts, sheets, and drawers hanging on clothes lines flapping in the breeze—rags shaking on the line! Other former residents of Shake-Rag have different stories, but this is the one I was always told. There is also some controversy as to where the exact boundaries lay. I always knew the community to be bordered on the north by the river—Wandering River. The southern boundary was 7th Street. On the east was Gordon Street, and on the west was Madison Street or the railroad track.

To some extent, Shake-Rag was self-contained. There was Maple Street School (which later became Gordon Street School when I was in the fifth grade) for grades one through twelve. There were two Baptist churches, two Methodist churches, one Church of Christ, and one Sanctified (Holiness or Pentecostal). There were even a few storefront churches which came and went over the years. There was the Belmont Grand Hotel (the only hotel where blacks could stay). There was even a good time house right next door to 313 Walnut Street. A good time house is a place where you can take a date (or meet one there), drink, play cards, gamble, and then make use of one of the bedrooms for a specified length of time. I had no idea that anything illicit took place in that house until I had been grown many years! The triple murder that took place there when I was about ten years old didn’t even trigger any light bulbs in my naïve brain. There were several joints in Shake-Rag where people went for good food, good music (usually a jukebox), and good drinking. There was also an American Legion Post, a VFW, and an Elks club. These provided pretty much the same thing that the joints provided but for members only. Also, Shake-Rag was home to a large dance hall and a Quonset hut used for dances, parties, and concerts. There were several white owned neighborhood groceries, two open-air markets, and a couple of dry cleaners, and the historic Dairy Queen (completely unrelated to the current chain) which had some of the best hamburgers and milk shakes that I can remember.

White America existed south of 7th Street. This area contained downtown Boat Landing wherein sat the city (and county) seat of government, the business world, and the shopping Mecca. Points further south and east gave way to the white residences and to the white educational institutions of the city. The black citizens of Boat Landing were given limited access to this area. We were allowed entry to pursue various menial occupations. And of course, we could purchase groceries, clothing, or perhaps odds and ends from Woolworth’s Ten Cent Store, or medicine from one of the drug stores. However, if a black man, woman, or child became hungry while shopping in downtown Boat Landing, he wouldn’t be permitted to stop and have a bite to eat at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s or Martin’s Drug Store. And if one became thirsty on a long hot afternoon, he had to drink from a special water fountain in Woolworth’s over which hung a sign marked Colored.

There is another story of my childhood which was told over and over for way too many times. I actually do remember this one, however. It was on a hot summer afternoon in Boat Landing. My mother and her first cousin, Anna Alice Mills from Benton, had gone shopping downtown. Aunt Anna Alice’s son Jack and I were about ten and nine years old at the time (maybe even younger), and we had gone along for the adventure. We were pretty responsible kids, so we were allowed to go off on our own to check out the toys in Woolworth’s and wander the streets of downtown. After a couple of hours, our mothers were still taking care of their business and we had gotten thirsty (and a little hungry too, I guess). We both had about two dollars and some change, so we decided to go into Martin’s Drug Store and get us a coke. Well, it was way past noon, so the lunch counter was pretty much void of customers. Jack and I looked at each other and thought Why not!? We parked our small behinds on the bar stools and ordered two cokes—and then some potato chips, and then some cheese-crackers, and more coke. It was obvious that the lady behind the counter thought we were cute by the matronly way she flirted with us winking her eye and calling us Sweetie. She probably thought the whole scenario was cute. I can imagine her telling family, friends, and all her customers about the two young curly-headed colored boys who had the nerve to sit at her counter and order cokes and chips. Mama and Aunt Anna Alice just happened to walk by Martin’s Drugs, looked in the window and saw us committing our social faux pas. They were amazed at how the waitress and the other customers were fawning over us. The two cousins looked at each other and walked on down the street as though we were not their kids! They passed on by like they didn’t even know us!!! But what can I say? That day, we had done our small part to break down the barriers imposed by the old Jim Crow laws.

NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

My performance debut occurred when I was about three years old. It was totally unplanned and totally unrehearsed. It took place at the Maple Street Baptist Church—across the street and down the street from MaKelly’s house. My grandfather (MaKelly’s first husband—William Ford Kelly) had been a deacon there in the early 1900’s. Before his death in 1917, he had purchased five seats in the church representing one for his wife and four children.

In the rear of the main sanctuary of the church (which seated about 500 people) was the prayer meeting room. This room could be sealed off from the main auditorium by tall, wooden, sliding, folding doors. To the right of the prayer room was an alcove that contained tables and tiny chairs and a couple of sand boxes filled with sand and toys. A large scroll-like display chart and stand was placed in the center of the room. The chart was like a calendar, and it contained a different Bible story and picture for each Sunday of the year. This area of the church was called the Sunday School Cradle Roll Department designed for preschoolers.

The Cradle Roll teachers were Mrs. Cora Dinkins (my grandmother’s neighbor two doors down) and one of her adult daughters, Miss Amanda Dinkins. On this particular Sunday, the two ladies had told us the Bible Story for the day (probably Joshua at Jericho or Jonah and the whale). There was still some time before everyone was to assemble in the main body of the church. So time was spent with all of us singing church songs that we knew. Some of the kids were singing Yes, Jesus Loves me, I’m a Little Sunbeam, or Oh Be Careful, Little Hands, What You Do.

I suddenly remembered a song that my mother’s brothers (John and Uncle Henry Ford) had played on the record player at my grandmother’s house. It was a song about church for sure, but different from the songs the other kids were singing. (I always wanted to be different!) So I raised my hand excitedly.

Miss Dinkins, Miss Dinkins, I practically screamed. I know a song. Can I sing it? Please! Please!

Sure, Josephus, she said with a smile. Go right ahead.

I stood up proudly. Then in an extremely loud voice that was just a bit off key, I sang. And I sang. And I sang. I was heard by everybody in the church (including all my family), the balcony, the basement, and even outside as I loudly proclaimed:

Well, they called on Deacon Jones to pray

All he could say was ‘Hey, Hey!’

Who put the whiskey in the well?

I smiled a great big smile of accomplishment and took my seat once I had done several choruses of the blues tune. This story became a family laugh for many years to come, and many years were to come before I got the joke.

Another early performance took place on the stage of the old Maple Street school auditorium during a local talent show. I guess I was about five years old at the time. I was paired up with one of my friends, Patricia Rivers, to sing a duet—the Nat King Cole hit, They Try to Tell Us We’re Too Young. I remember that I wore black jacket and gray pants and a black bow tie. Patricia wore a floor length blue gown with ruffles and lace.

At the rehearsal, I remember hearing Mama tell Pat’s mother, Daisy:

Make sure Patricia sings good and loud. You know Josephus can’t stay in tune.

Then the two mothers giggled uncontrollably.

To my own underdeveloped ears, I thought I sounded great. I remember it all too well:

They try to tell us we’re too young

Too young to really be in love

They say that love’s a word

A word we’ve only heard

But can’t begin to know the meaning of

Another time (on the same stage) I danced to the tune of Bubble Land holding a string of helium filled balloons and wearing a little yellow dress trimmed in red trimming (with matching panties!). I did drag another time as a flower girl in a Womanless Wedding held at church.

He’s so pretty, one lady said to Mama. "He should have been a little girl.

That was a statement that I heard often as a child. I really didn’t know what to think about the statement. I didn’t know if I had been complimented or insulted. I still don’t to this day.

In 1954, the pastor of Maple Street Baptist Church was a South Carolina transplant named J. D. Smith. Somehow, he had run across some old church documents that made him aware of the tremendous role that my grandfather, William Ford Kelly, had played in the development of our church. So Rev. Smith approached my mother (He, like many others, did not get along well with MaKelly.) about the possibility of doing something to memorialize her father. It was decided that a new choir would be organized—hence the formation of the Kelly Memorial Choir—to provide the music every second Sunday of the month.

The choir was made up of mostly Kellys and Carsons and some of their extended family members (This filled the choir stand!). It didn’t just provide the usual songs from the hymnal for Sunday services, the Kelly Memorial Choir began to add some of the spicier gospel tunes of that day and time as well as some older spirituals. The church goers liked this change, and the attendance on the second Sundays began to grow. My grandmother, of course, was in the choir. So were Mama and Daddy (Daddy was the star soloist!) and my brother William. Aunt Mary and her two children—my cousins Franklin Ford and Brenda Jane (Brenda sometimes played piano and organ)—were members. There were other family and non-family members who rounded out the membership.

I can remember so clearly how they would line up at the back of the church along side the last row of pews on the right. Standing there in all black, they would sing in perfect four-part harmony so sweet you can frost a cake with it!

I hear the Southland singing from

(Just here, the words to the song leave me.) . . .

And that sweet sounding music

It must be the children of God

And then they would march down the aisle into the choir stand. Daddy didn’t march in with everyone else. He always took his seat in the tenor section on the third row prior to the processional.

Daddy would always get the congregation stirred up (especially Mama) with his renditions of He Knows How Much We Can Bear or Peace in the Valley. Feet would be patting; heads would be bobbing; bodies would be swaying. People would be talking out loud—

Sing your song, son!

I know what you’re talking about, young man!

Amen, my brother!

Without any doubts, I was the choir’s most avid fan. To my young mind, eyes, and ears, they were superstars. I couldn’t wait for the second Sundays to come around. I just loved the soulful, sometimes bluesy, sometimes rocking music. The shouting always made me nervous and uncomfortable, however, especially if the shouter was Mama. And usually when Daddy sang or prayed, Mama gave in to the violent urge to shout and scream. It wasn’t until I had become older and had undergone