By: Lennard James
Long before Dr. Logan H. Westbrooks became a pioneering music executive whose career helped expand opportunities for Black artists and executives, his foundation was being built in a close-knit Memphis neighborhood known as Lauderdale Sub. In his book, Lauderdale Sub: Memories of a Memphis Neighborhood, Westbrooks returns to those roots, preserving the people, families, churches, values and memories of a community whose influence reached far beyond its geographic boundaries.
Published by Ascent Book Publishing and edited by LaRita Shelby, the book is a deeply personal exploration of a Memphis neighborhood that helped produce generations of achievers. It draws heavily upon memories and oral traditions, documenting stories that might otherwise disappear as neighborhoods change and generations pass.
Community sits at the center of the story.
Westbrooks remembers an environment where neighbors knew one another, children played together and adults collectively looked after the young people around them. The book is dedicated to families who lived in Lauderdale Sub beginning in the 1940s and continuing through more recent generations. It recalls a neighborhood where family, faith, education, discipline and personal responsibility were central parts of everyday life.
Those values would help shape Westbrooks himself.
A Memphis native, Westbrooks graduated from Booker T. Washington High School before continuing his education at LeMoyne-Owen College and Lincoln University. He eventually entered the recording industry and became part of a generation of Black executives who broke significant barriers in the business. His professional career included positions connected to Capitol Records, CBS Records and Source Records, among other ventures.
Yet the book looks behind those professional accomplishments to examine where that determination began.
Westbrooks does not tell the story of the neighborhood through his family alone. The book recognizes numerous families who contributed to the community, including the Bishop, Bryant, Davenport, Hawkins, Hodges, Moore, Neely, Patterson, Porter, Smith, Stiles and Weaver families. By bringing these names and memories together, the book becomes something larger than one man’s memoir. It functions as a community record.
That distinction is important because African American history is often preserved through photographs, family stories, church records and memories passed from one generation to another, as much as through government documents and institutional archives.
Editor and creative director LaRita Shelby describes the project as a historical document built around the treasures contained within oral traditions. Shelby also has family roots in Lauderdale Sub, giving the project an additional connection to the community it chronicles.
Faith also occupies an important place in the story.
The book pays tribute to neighborhood churches including Morning View, Mount Sinai and Carnegie Church of God in Christ. These institutions were more than Sunday destinations. Within communities like Lauderdale Sub, churches often served as gathering places where families built relationships, young people received guidance and generations developed their spiritual and social foundations.
The neighborhood’s legacy can also be measured through some of the individuals associated with it.
Among those highlighted are the late Bishop G. E. Patterson, who became an internationally recognized Church of God in Christ leader. Restaurateur James Neely is also featured, along with the late Memphis songwriter Don Bryant, who co-wrote the soul classic “I Can’t Stand the Rain” with Ann Peebles. Their accomplishments represent only part of a larger story of residents and descendants who contributed to ministry, education, business, government, medicine, aviation, entertainment and other professions.
That is one of the book’s most compelling messages: greatness does not always begin in places the world immediately recognizes as historically important.
Sometimes it begins on an ordinary street.
It begins with parents demanding more from their children. It develops through teachers who insist that students learn, churches that reinforce faith, neighbors who refuse to look the other way and families that believe the next generation can accomplish something greater.
Decades later, the physical appearance of a neighborhood may change. Houses disappear. Businesses close. Families relocate. New generations may drive through without knowing who once lived there or what happened behind those doors.
A book can preserve what development and time cannot.
That makes the book particularly meaningful for Memphis. Westbrooks is documenting a piece of Black Memphis history through the voices and experiences of people who actually lived it. Rather than allowing Lauderdale Sub to survive only through scattered family memories, the book places those experiences into a permanent record for children, grandchildren, historians and future generations.
The project also adds another dimension to Westbrooks’ own legacy. His career has long been connected to the advancement of Black music and the artists and executives who helped transform American popular culture. Lauderdale Sub turns the lens in another direction, toward the neighborhood that helped prepare him for that journey.
Ultimately, Lauderdale Sub: Memories of a Memphis Neighborhood is more than a reflection on where Dr. Logan H. Westbrook grew up.
It is a tribute to the families who built a community, the churches that strengthened it, the elders who protected it and the young people who carried its lessons into the wider world.
The buildings may change, and some of the people may be gone, but through Westbrooks’ work, the story of Lauderdale Sub will not simply disappear.
It has been remembered. It has been documented. And now, it can be passed on.
Link: Best Music Marketing & Business Books | Music Industry Guide
