[2][3] Delilah Beasley, in an early 20th-century biographical compendium, says he was of "mixed Indian parentage" and claims he was a "direct descendant of Powhattan" through his mother.

After seeing the lynching of a black youth he made a vow to himself that he would honor these drops of African blood by rendering service to the Negro[a] race.

[7] Relative to eastern states, California in the early 20th century did not have a large Black population; it started to grow substantially following World War II.

[10] California was nonetheless home to a variety of organizations, including the NAACP, that fought Jim Crow laws in the American West.

[11] He was also a member of the Los Angeles Men's Forum, an organization founded in 1903 which aimed to "encourage united effort on the part of Negroes for their advance".

[12][13] In San Francisco, he worked various jobs before becoming an office worker at the California Packing Company (later renamed Del Monte[14]), where he remained until 1946, two years before his death.

[2][15] He remained involved in electoral politics in San Francisco, serving on the Republican State Central Committee and as a judge of elections.

The community organized the concert as an alternative to the stage version of The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,[16] which was performed for several weeks in San Francisco that year, beginning on March 1.

[1] The 1914 work "The Whistle-Maker", after which Ricks's only collection is named, compares a performer who makes and plays whistles to figures in classical mythology such as Orpheus and Pan.

[12][22] Among the many subjects Ricks treated in his work were political and social issues, including the oppression of Black Americans and hopes for racial progress in the United States.

Introducing "Do We Remember?—Memorial Day, 1916", published in the Eagle that year, an anonymous commentator wrote: As Scott and Burns sang of the fatherland, so sings Mr. Ricks of his people in this country.