[Ads-l] Antedating of "Honky" (African-American Term for White Person)

[mr_peter_morris@outlook.com]

Here's a use of the phrase "Honkie Town" From what appears to be 1963 
(usual caveats)

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Motive/g7VGAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=honkie&dq=honkie&printsec=frontcover

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Life Magazine, Aug 26 1966

"Not Hickory, just a bit honkie is all . "

Not sure what it means, but the article does involve racial tensions.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5lUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22&dq=%22honkie+is+all+.+%22+Not+precisely+sure+what+he+meant+by+that+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjapeLemvaMAxW9aEEAHfcMHgMQuwV6BAgGEAc#v=onepage&q=%22honkie%20is%20all%20.%20%22%20Not%20precisely%20sure%20what%20he%20meant%20by%20that%20%22&f=false

------ Original Message ------
From "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 26/04/2025 13:23:50
Subject Antedating of "Honky" (African-American Term for White Person)

>honky (OED, 2., 1967 [10 Apr.])
>
>1967 Nashville Tennessean 25 Mar. 1/7 (ProQuest)
>
>[Report of remarks by Stokley Carmichael:]  The honkies (whites) are fixing to try to keep us from speaking over here at Vanderbilt.
>
>NOTE:  Green's Dictionary of Slang includes a 1935 citation of "Hunkie," but I believe this is an instance of the word, derived from "Bohunk," referring to blue-collar Eastern European immigrants.  Both Green and the Historical Dictionary of American Slang include a 1946 citation of "Honky" from Mezz Mezzrow's book Really the Blues, but this is clearly an instance of the blue-collar Eastern-European immigrant term.  Mezzrow explicitly glossed the word as meaning "factory hand," as acknowledged by Lighter in HDAS.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org