Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing.

Manning's mother sent him to spend summers with his father, aunt, and grandmother on their farm in Aiken, South Carolina.

On Saturdays, farmhands and locals would come to the farm to play music on the front porch with harmonicas and a washtub bass.

[4] Manning started listening to records on a Victrola in his bedroom and would practice dancing with a broom or a chair.

The air step he performed was a "back-to-back roll" and was danced while Chick Webb played "Down South Camp Meeting" at Manning's request.

Manning created the troupe's first ensemble routines and functioned as the group's de facto choreographer, although he was never officially credited with that title.

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers disbanded around World War II when many of the male dancers entered the armed forces.

Across England and South America the group performed, also making an appearance in the 1948 film Killer Diller.

[6] When the Congaroos disbanded in 1955, Manning quietly settles into a career with the United States Postal Service.

Before he died in 1985, he told his students that Manning, another surviving member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, also lived in New York City.

Mitchell and Stevens returned to California and helped to spread Lindy Hop to the West Coast and other areas of the U.S. That same year, Lennart Westerlund contacted Manning and invited him to Sweden to work with The Rhythm Hot Shots.