Oilfield History
CAREFUL - it's rayciss…
In the days of wooden oil derricks, large wrenches called "tongs" were hung from the derrick so they could be used when adding more pipe. They naturally treid to drift back into the center of the derrick, getting entangled with the rotating drill pipe.
When lots of unscrewing of pipe was required, this was a problem. So local black kids made money by simply holding on to these tongs to keep them out of the way for the roughnecks.
A rubber device was invented to do this automatically - and this length of rubber became known as a "nigger boy" because it eliminated that particular part-time job.
Today rigs are setup and run differently, and the new guys working them do not even know what the term "nigger boy" means….