Word: taylorisms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Taylor Gordon, famed here and abroad for singing spirituals, needs no ghostwriter to tell his story for him. He tends to his own self-expression...
...grandfather was a black chief. His father was a black chef. At their deaths he was raised by his chocolate-brown mother who once slaved in Kentucky's blue grass. She taught small Taylor to knock wood. But one thing she did not teach...
...Maude. Unlike her kind, she was not a fighter, could not beat policemen. She was genteel, of noble English descent (her story), and wise. She charged more for drinks than any of her competitors. The miners and farmers marveled at the way her four girls dressed. Big Maude asked Taylor Gordon to work for her. He agreed, ran errands for the girls, served drinks, wore brass buttons and blue coat, received good wages, liked...
...Taylor knew other whites. In a dive, he sold them opium at $1 a paper. Another place was a bowling-alley. When one bowler saw him bunching the pins for the next man, Taylor had to leave through a window. Life was not all work. The white boys had a game "Stray Goose." One boy ran, until caught and pummeled. Taylor helped. When he was 16 he put on a cowboy's costume and strutted to a dance. The girls were nicer than Big Maude's. He began to dream and want money. He told his mother what...
...Ejected from a restaurant, he soon found out what his mother never taught him, that if you were a nigger you were degraded. The thing to do was find a menial job. You could be a "sweetback" (Negro gigolo). Taylor was not, but he was chauffeur, porter, valet. Later he toured with Circusman Ringling. But he was not satisfied. Something new was growing in him now-he wanted to sing the woes of his race. Like many a Negro he felt a queerly mixed hatred and love of his people...