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(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 143: Those penny-ante squares who came in [...] putting on their millionaires’ airs.at penny ante, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 143: Those penny-ante squares who came in [...] putting on their millionaires’ airs. (con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 213: The strong-arm thugs were bluffing.at strong-arm, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 173: This was the gang of organized boosters, who would deliver, to order [...] any kind of garment you desired.at booster, n.2
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 214: I was myself [...] supplying some lesser quantities of bootleg to reputable Harlem bars.at bootleg, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 143: Black girls, brownskins, high yellows, even a couple of the white girls there.at brownskin, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 129: Burns them white folks up when you get youself something.at burn up, v.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 188: I loved all of that dancing and carrying on.at carrying-on, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 177: You couldn’t imagine a known cat-man thief regularly exposing himself as one of the most popular people in [the bar].at cat-man (n.) under cat, n.1
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 129: A wiry, brown-skinned, conked fellow [...] greeted me.at conked, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 135: [I] posed the way ‘hipsters’ wearing their zoots would ‘cool it’ — hat angled, knees drawn close together, feet wide apart, both index fingers jabbed towards the floor. The long coat and swinging chain and Punjab pants were much more dramatic if you stood that way.at cool it, v.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 187: ‘My man!’ ‘Crazy, Red!’.at crazy!, excl.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 235: Never cross a man not afraid to die.at cross, v.1
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 149: Every time I saw Ella [...] she turned on the third degree.at third degree, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 143: We were out there lindying away and grinning at each other. It couldn’t have been finer.at fine, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 140: Shorty would take me to groovy, frantic scenes in different chicks’ and cats’ pads.at frantic, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 212: Like most bars in Harlem, Negroes fronted, and a Jew really owned the place.at front, v.2
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 161: Beauty shops smoky inside from Negro women’s hair getting fried.at fry (one’s hair) (v.) under fry, v.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 127: There’s a lot of bread to made gigging right around here in Roxbury.at gig, v.5
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 140: Cats who were hip to all happenings.at happenings, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 202: I’d point out the Negro-happy white women to him.at -happy, sfx
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 198: I too would key myself to pull these jobs by my first use of hard dope [...] cocaine.at hard, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 143: Black girls, brownskins, high yellows, even a couple of the white girls there.at high yellow, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 175: The Four Horsemen that worked Sugar Hill [...] there was a tough quartet.at Sugar Hill, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 149: Four or five unattached girls who would run around trying to hook up with some guy they knew could really lindy.at hook up (with), v.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 127: I wished had studied a horn; but I never had been exposed to one.at horn, n.2
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 189: Her parents made it so hot that Sammy had come to Harlem.at hot, adj.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 176: She started hearing [...] the hush-hush that ‘niggers’ were such sexual giants and athletes.at hush-hush, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 218: No hustler could have it known that he’d been ‘hyped’, meaning outsmarted.at hype, v.1
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 194: A few were amused, seeing me as the ‘Harlem jigaboo’ archetype.at jigaboo, n.
(con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 235: On a patent lock, we’d use a jimmy, as it’s called, or a lockpick.at jimmy, n.2
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