“I worked for several downtown stores when I was a teenager. When one boss took me to an auction and I got a behind-the-scenes look into retail for the first time, a light bulb went off in my head. I saw how things worked, and I thought, I want to get into this business someday. I want to own a store. One day when I was walking down Beale, I stopped in front of this building, looked in the window, and a feeling came over me. I thought, This is it. It was like an epiphany, like it was meant to be. I had always loved Beale Street. My father did too. He was the sharpest-dressed black man in Memphis in his day. He and my mother met right there in front of the Daisy Theater in 1950. There used to be all kinds of businesses down here: a Harlem House right across the street [African-American version of the Toddle House], barbershop, dentist, clothing stores, everything. Beale Street was where I spent half of the first paycheck I ever got and the first place I went when I learned to drive. There’s a lot of history here. I signed the lease on this store in 1983 and have been here ever since. When times have been lean, I could always look out the front door, see the Daisy, and think, What would my dad say? I could have done lots of other things, but sometimes you just know you're doing what you’re supposed to be doing. I was talking one day with the guy who started the Beale Street Flippers, and he told me that one of the young flippers said to him, ‘I want to be like Mr. James one day and own a business too.’ That meant a lot to me. I’ve been here for 32 years. I’m a constant, and they can see that. You don’t realize that young people are looking at you and patterning themselves after you, but they are. Young people who look like me can see someone stick with one thing and make a success of his life.”
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