Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) an arrest on false or petty charges [var. on hummer n.⁶ ].

1940		in Current Hist. and Forum 7 Nov. 22: He runs the risk of being locked up on a humble (sent to disciplinary company for talking back to a guard.) [HDAS].
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 147: It was a jive tip, but there were a whole lot of cats up there on humbles.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 236: There was always the possibility of getting busted on a humble, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 163: No one wants to go to jail, even for an overnight humble.
2004		Simon & Burns ‘Straight and True’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 5 [TV script] It ain’t gonna be about no humble, it ain’t gonna be about no loiterin’ charge [...] there gonna be some biblical shit.
2015		D. Simon on themarshallproject.org 29 Apr. 🌐 A humble is a cheap, inconsequential arrest that nonetheless gives the guy a night or two in jail before he sees a court commissioner. You can arrest people on ‘failure to obey,’ it’s a humble. Loitering is a humble. [...] It’s the ultimate recourse for a cop who doesn’t like somebody who's looking at him the wrong way.

2. (US black, also humbolt, hummel) a self-defeating act; any situation that puts one at a disadvantage.

1959		F.L. Brown Trumbull Park 385: The nobodies, the no-bread squares. The cats on a humble.
1977		A. Brooke Last Toke 7: Leering as if he were a Narc and had caught him, pants down, in a humbolt. [Ibid.] 207: The mere thought of telling a black man’s truth to a honkie cop had convinced him and Richie that they would be putting their nigger butts in the biggest humbolt the law had to offer.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso xvi: hummel, humble – a fruitless course; a misguided effort. [Ibid.] 213: He doesn’t care! He’s dead! He’s living from day to day on a hummel.
2005		W.D. Myers Autobiog. of My Dead Brother 161: I didn’t want it to look like I was copping a humble.