In order to rationalize the exclusion of Negroes from machine jobs, the argument was soon popularized that Negroes were clumsy and would be lulled to sleep by the whirring of the wheels. The distinguished Southern historian, Walter L. Fleming, for example, contended, in 1949, that "the negroes because of lack of quickness and sensitiveness of youth proved to be unfit for factory work. Besides, the noise of the machinery made them sleep and it was beyond their power to report for work at a regular hour each morning."
--Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson, p. 158.
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