Page "Honky-tonk" Paragraph 5

The term honky was, as a term for whites, is thought to have derived from bohunk and hunky.

In the early 1900s, these were derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants.

According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, black workers in Chicago meatpacking plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all whites.

" Father of the Blues " W. C.

Handy wrote of " Negroes and hunkies " in his autobiography.