Artie was born in Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, as the third of eleven children in a farm family. "You worked harder and longer and you got lesser," he quips of those days on the farm. He came to Shreveport alone to attend high school. "I had to send my own self to school," he says. He washed dishes at the Washington Hotel from 3 to 10:30 p.m., and bought his clothes at Goodwill. "Children used to laugh at me because I wasn't able to go dressed like other children, and it hurt," he recalls. Artie attended Milam Street Training School as well as Central Colored High School. Besides working at the hotel, he also was employed by Goldman Dry Goods Store, as well as at a radio station. He also worked as a carpenter. He joined a gospel singing group, Echoes of Zion, composed of both white and black members.