Location: The Bronx Zoo, New York ( 1906) 🌎
Story:
Ota Benga, a young Mbuti man from the Congo, was brought to America in 1904 by explorer Samuel Verner. In 1906, the Bronx Zoo placed him in the Monkey House, exhibited alongside an orangutan as a so-called "missing link" between humans and apes. Thousands flocked to see him. Visitors jeered, poked, and threw things. A sign displayed his height, age, and feeding times ,as if he were an animal. 🦍
Twist:
Black clergymen led protests, decrying the inhuman display, and Ota Benga was eventually released. He learned English, worked in a tobacco factory, and longed to return home. But when World War I halted shipping, hope died. In 1916, he built a ceremonial fire, removed the dental modifications that marked his heritage, danced a final ritual, and shot himself in the heart. Ota Benga's tragedy is a haunting chapter in America's history of racism and exploitation,a man who was treated as a curiosity, but who, in the end, reclaimed his humanity in the only way left to him. 🔄