>> now on booktv, pamela newkirk, professor of journalism at new york university talks about the life of ota benga, a congolese dwarf was featured in antipolitics it did during the 1904 st. louis world there. two years later, the 103-pound 4'11" ota benga was displayed in the bronx zoo monkey house with an orangutan. >> now it's my pleasure to introduce the next speaker, pamela newkirk is professor of journalism at direct of undergraduate studies at new york university's institute. she's also the author of black

journalists, white immediate which one an award and is the editor of letters for black america. her many honors were published in numerous publications. prior to joining nyu she worked at for news organizations including new york newsday which is on 18. were so happy to have her here this evening so please help me in looking pamela newkirk. [applause] good evening everyone. there's good like here. i won't have to were my classes. at such a pleasure to be here tonight, particularly to be here indisputable building where i get so much of my research on this section of ota benga's

life. so thank you. thank you all for being here. black lives matter out it's a centuries old -- the docket fully. it's what benjamin conveyed to thomas jefferson in 1791 when he counseled quote it is the indispensable duty of those who maintain our themselves the rights of human nature to extend that power and influence to the belief of every part of the human race. it's the lament of langston hughes who cried i too, sing america. it's an assertion, a question a call, a prayer. black lives matter. it's what inspired my research into the start of ota benga, a young congolese male who in 1906 garnered global headlines after

he was exhibited in the bronx zoo monkey house at times with an orangutan. but why would the star of disgraced african who did not leave behind any records nor perform any remarkable feat merit a biography? when i began my research five years ago i could not know that some would see his life as a metaphor for black lives today. but i somehow knew that his story mattered. and how he came to be so monumentally degraded in a world-class city at the top of the 20th century during the progressive era mattered. so begin to explore his distributed by interrogating what had already been written. i begin with a book published in 1992 that had for me become the definitive account of ota benga's life. ota benga they paid me in this

income was written by philippa bernard bradford, the grandson of the african explorer who brought ota benga to the united states. according to the introduction the book wasn't the story of friendship between ota benga. from the first few pages i was intrigued by the notion that bernard had forged a friendship with this african subject who then somehow ended up in a zoo being displayed with apes. the colorful narrative was akin to the tale of robinson crusoe and decide state friday but had no citations and was almost entirely based on uncorroborated account. the book nonetheless edged bernard's tale of friendship with ota benga into the hard drive of history. i sought out other sources.

i turned to the wildlife conservation society are known as the bronx zoo to see who how it had recorded ota benga's exhibition. the plot thickened. gathering of animals and unconventional history then you zoological society, first published in 1974 explored the history of this to begin with its creation in 1899. recounting of the the, william bridges, the former curator of publications contended it was unlikely that ota benga have ever been caged and displayed at all. quote was ota benga exhibited like some strange rare animal, he asked? that he was locked behind bars a very caged to be stared at during certain hours seems unlikely, he said ignoring evidence in the zoological society of archives that

verified ota benga second exhibition in a cage at specific times of the day. been any purported effort to clarify what had transpired, he claimed ota benga had entered a cage to play with the chimpanzees that accompanied him from africa and quote a label of information about him was put on the front of the cage while he was in a. he concluded quote, at this distance in time that is about all that can be said for sure except that it was all done with the best of intentions. ota benga was interested to the new public which have not been -- family of pygmies in st. louis, closed quote. i soon learned that is bewildering suggestion about defies any faithful reading of the archival records. bank is exhibition in a very caged to be stared at her in

certain hours is unequivocally documented in newspaper articles correspondence and in the published article in the zoological society's own journal. this was a just one of many examples of deception i discovered by a trusted custodian of history. meanwhile, the voluminous archival records that expose key aspects of ota benga's life and the certain stances of his capture in captivity have largely gone untouched. revisiting this case gives us a rare look at history and raises troubling questions about what we know and what we think we know about our past. while ota benga did not leave behind his own papers, others including samuel bernard the. balance of archival records letters, ship passenger records,

the autobiographical of him to newspaper and magazine articles anthropological census data, photographs, recorded recollections of those who knew of ota benga enabled me to retrace his steps from the congo through europe and across the united states. what i discovered exceeded my worst suspicions about his relationship with samuel verner. i was able to be ever more clear how the racial attitudes of new york city's social elite were embedded in scholarship, government policies and culture and why some of those attitudes linger still my first a little bit about the samuel verner. he was the first child of slaveholding family in south carolina who came of age during the virulent backlash to the games blacks have made in

reconstruction. at white supremacy he went to the coca first as a missionary and then as a determined to make a fortune in the country have been plundered by the belgian king. is millions of congolese were being enslaved, murdered or maimed under the guise of civilizing them werner left his mission of post and focus his efforts on capitalizing on the turmoil there. in 1904, he returned to the congo as a special agent for the st. louis world's fair. his assignment was to bring back so-called pygmies to exhibit at the fair. fair organizers hope to map human progress from the lowest to the highest civilization with so-called pygmies deemed the least civilized. heavily armed and with approval of king leopold and u.s. government officials verner

went hunting for pygmies. benga was the first of his captives. he wrote my untold adventures while hunting pygmies in the congo. in lectures and articles bernard promoted ota benga as accountable noting his pointy teeth which in reality were fashionable across the congo. two years later, verner temporarily housed or turned benga over to the bronx zoo where he was exhibited in the monkey house in september of 1906. buschmann shared the cage with bronx aids was had let him in your on september 9 1906. tens of thousands of new yorkers flocked to the zoo to see benga as he sat stupefied silence protests fell on deaf ears.

they refuse to meet with ministers or intervene. zoological society secretary madison grant also held firm and zoo director with the blessings of his elite superiors was defiant sink exhibit would go on as the sign said quote each afternoon in september. ota benga coming insisted quote had the best room in the monkey house. "new york times" editor was dismayed by the protest. they wrote quote, we do not understand all the emotion which others are expressing in the matter your ota benga, according to our information, is enormous specimen of his race or tribe with a brain much developed as those as other members. whether they're held to be illustration of the "arrested development" and really closer to aids and other african --

[inaudible] or whether the degenerate descendents of ordinary negroes, they are of equal interest to the student of -- and can be studied, closed quote. it was a benga's to captivity that ultimately convinced the zoo officials he was too much to handle. he was not entrusted to the care of reverend james gordon at and/or for an edge -- that's an orphanage. we felt is a journey and return to the hallowed orphanage farm and long i've ever lived a lonely life and become st. james. in 1910 he returned to lynchburg where he worked on a tobacco farm and did odd jobs. he also became a beloved companion to neighbor children to whom he thought the waste of the force, hunting fishing picking berries and roots. and lynchburg, he was embraced

by the town's black committee that included and since it would go on to become a renaissance poet and it actually been ota benga's teacher at the seminary. he would spend his final years trying to find his way back home while trying to adjust to american life. so i'll read a small excerpt from that period in lynchburg where he bonded with a group of boys. in lynchburg, benga had found a surrogate home and family and would learn the customs and the boundaries of their binding like this. when he crossed into neighboring cottonwood a white working-class community that he was coupled and pelted with rocks. he would come back and ask why they did that chauncey recalled years later. he didn't understand.

however, long before he arrived in lynchburg ota benga had seen a scout or score prediction on the basis of -- and the jeering crowd in st. louis and among the spectators outside the cage at the monkey house. he learned to live within a carefully drawn minds of lynchburg like to meet and practiced customs his people crafted from memory and centuries-old oppression. in their spiritual come in a recognized sorrow as familiar as the force to do. they were the descendents of the people who knew the despair of displacement, and the loss of language and of friendship, families rituals sites, since in some. if my daughter is your she sink there she goes again, she's about to cry. these people cobbled together from of our continent made a new, benga be rebuked and scored, and yet do them to their

bosom. some had lost loved ones to slavery, some for the children of their insulators. yet with all other travails he had made room for homeless stranger. benga had only memories, and no one but he could know what form they took. was the haunted by visions of murdered loved ones or starving tortured chained congolese? did he dreamily trip to the joyful gatherings that came and went only to awaken alone lacks some nights beneath a star speckled sky the boys would watch benga build a fire and dance and sing around it. the boys were enraptured as he circled the flames hopping and sing as if they were not there. they were no older than 10, too young to grasp the poignancy of the ancient ritual or the

urgency of benga's referring to and i look into their and take your questions. thank you. [applause] does no one have questions? you've all read the book? [inaudible] >> -- a little bit about on the bbc world news last night. >> i was up late last night doing that. [inaudible] >> what eventually happened to? >> he took his life. [inaudible] >> i should have said spoiler alert. is age is contested. samuel verner offered many different pages printed he offered many different accounts of how he was captured, i think,

whatever the word is. but from the best evidence available, only come if anyone has a copy of the book, look at that picture. that picture was taken two years before he was exhibited in the bronx zoo. he's clearly a child. and get later in his life he said that he was 13 when he was captured. which would mean that when using the bronx zoo he would've been 15. and when he died he would have been 25. >> good evening. >> good evening. >> i want to thank you so much for shining the light on the young man. also do you have books today for self? >> yes, i hope so.

>> wonderful wonderful. and my second question is what was life like for him in the orphanage where they turn children -- [inaudible] >> no, it was a lot better than being in the bronx zoo monkey house, and he was given his own room where he could smoke. he could do, you know pretty much what he wanted. but, of course, he was to isolated from children. he could not have real human interactions with people. he was to alienated from his country, from his people. he had limited english there at the time he spoke maybe 100 words. so he wanted to go home that's what he wanted. he wanted to go home, but it seemed that they were very nice to him there.

mary gordon who was the house mother was described in every account i've ever read of her as very maternal very warm and loving. she was really beloved by the children there long after they left. they would still refer to her as mother. [inaudible] >> i don't know if you address this in your book but with other complex english chicago world fair have exhibits go to? >> they are called human zoos and i think the difference between what was very popular particularly in europe at the turn of century, at the close of the 19 city, human zoos were very popular of so-called primitive people. but they were people exhibited with people. ota benga was exhibited with an orangutan and with monkeys in

the monkey house. and so up to the spectators to decide whether or not he was -- [inaudible] >> -- ota benga as a youngster in ripley's believe it or not. i want to know what was the psychology of the people who were viewing? did actually think he was a monkey on what? >> for some reason i never loved a zoos. that was particularly so i went to the monkey house and to look at monkeys, you look at aids and this seems to be some recognition. they are looking at you like what are you looking at? you know i always feel uneasy when i made eye contact because they are so intelligent, right? so if you think about our

ability to go to look at caged animals who are highly intelligent pigs are highly intelligent. what would you do them. if people are not fully convinced that he is human, it's the same thing. so i don't think that they've got to looking at a full human being. they thought they were looking at someone who was subhuman because why else would he be in a cage in a monkey house? >> good evening. i want to thank you for doing this. this story resonated with me because it makes me wonder sometimes what any given sunday, i go to church in harlem at it into the church is always a crowd of white tourists lined up and get taking photos, as if black people are exhibits. so i wonder, is your coalition

and your research have you seen anything that proved or showed this fascination with seeing i guess you say what black people are maybe in this case you are talking in terms of primitive people, you know, being seen as objects, so being objectified? >> well, one should discard our diminishes someone's humanity and a check to buy them from danger to make a spectacle of them. you could really do it in less -- [inaudible] so when he recognized as a human being. and since these ideas of black lives are not just the ideas of marginalized this is rooted in science, the blacks were a degenerate race that they were closer to eight than other human

beings -- closer to apes -- on for so long that i did have circulated in the highest echelon of the academy. and it should be no surprise that 100 years later, while you would not say i hope you wouldn't see a black person exhibited in a zoo but the are some of those subconscious oddities that may explain this rash of police killings of unarmed black boys and men who get shot in the back people being, you know, riddled with bullets while they sit in the car. i don't think it's a conscience -- conscious thing but we have those kind of ideas, so deeply embedded in everything that america is it really should not surprise us that some of those ideas are lingering, but they've morphed in taken on new forms.

>> thanks so much for the book very much. i have read a good portion of it and i think it's fantastic. [inaudible] the center for black literature. >> thank you. talk a little bit about some of the challenges in your five years of research. that was very fascinating. >> the challenges psychologically? [laughter] >> and in the research itself. >> well, the research was quite challenging as you could want to mention. doing research on marginalized people dislike really tests your as a researcher at some experience because my last book was all about going into the archives and looking for letters that many people didn't think

slaves wrote letters or be enslaved i should say. people from all walks of life wrote letters and black people always short-lived. so there's just this because our lives were not considered meaningful, it's harder to find evidence of our life. so yeah going into the archives i couldn't go to the archives to withhold the papers of ota benga. so yeah yeah to look in unexpected places. and you have to like just you have to look harder and you have to go to the people who catch them. at the go where ever whatever you think there may be something. after a while, the interesting thing about this project, while it was so hard the first two

years and at one point i thought i may have to give the money back, i'm not going to be able to do this, it's too hard. things just started tumbling out of closets. it's like when you look so long you know, it's like you get something and then it just started unfolding. i felt like i was stalked by ota benga. i'm up here. you know like i was having these like incredible times. i could not even imagine that i would be able to literally trace his footsteps on an almost daily basis in 1904 in 1905 in 1906. i could never have anticipated the kind of detailed that i was able to get of his life. and that's because the elite

people of new york society kept a lot of records, you know and they didn't feel the need to hide anything because it was going to look for the life of ota benga? they didn't see me coming. >> pleasant good evening. >> good evening. >> really appreciate you taking the time out of your life and to bring ota benga to life. and i guess this isn't one question, right? a bunch of things. understanding the climate of this nation, the climate of this world and how the darkest people of this world somehow end up oppressed there an understanding that me being a doctor of a

compound that altogether come reading this book what, what should it do for me -- the may be an obvious question about like you to answer that? >> i think what it might do for you, first of all it substantiate suspicions many of us had right that this stuff is not just happenstance, right? is deeply, deeply, deeply rooted. so much of the scholarship is kind of not out of their circulated -- not out of their circulated. we all had a feeling about things but then you being told that you know, we have barack obama in the white house and you're paranoid, and if you got shot in the back 20 times you were probably doing something

and so, and on and on. and so i say maybe you cannot draw a straight line from 1906 to this period. it helps inform where we are today. and it shows us the foundation of many of the ideas that are still percolating today. what it should do for you you know, humanity is a tricky thing, you know when ota benga is humanity was diminished, the people who diminished his humanity were diminished more. and i think our humanity, i mean, we have to give good about our humanity. you know i think that quote from benjamin when he was challenging thomas jefferson to read this view of blacks

somehow. he would say like this is your humanity, too, brother. so you know it's kind of a call to our collective conscience. like, come on people, like enough. so i don't know. this book is the story of ota benga, and it's also a mirror to our society during that period. it's not really connecting dots to today. i'm doing that now you asked me the question, but you may see something in there that will help you collect you know connect the dots. >> good evening. thank you. the commonality of human zoos at the turn of the last century company, that was kind of like

how could they? but -- >> there has to be humans is over the past 10 years. >> right, but i kind of wonder what your thoughts were about the whole idea what people search go to brazil and the one tours are the perfect union and the catholic the largest slums in africa and alex sitting on the bus and they are pointing out someone that's what some of lives. that's what it is about the. i feel like they're sort of a human zoo think it is kind of like poor tourism but is marketing as look to the world, you know, the other people in the world. i'm not sure it's like a call to action as it will can we do to change it, or more like they live like that and i live like that is quite common and i wondered if you have any thoughts on that? >> i would not dare generalize computer, i think all kind of people travel and all kinds of people look for different

reasons. some people do things of what they take in and some people don't. i just think that when you're in touch with your humanity it's just a good thing. it's just a good thing. i mean, so i don't, you know have anything more to say past that. but back to what you were asking. one of the things that i found inspiring in recounting his life is to look at the people who defied the conventions of their time from the racial attitudes other times step out of the box, took the chance in protest of what was happening. and i found that incredibly inspiring. the first minister to protest ota benga's captivity was not a black minister as some accounts have said. he was a baptist minister that he was a canadian minister who was white and his church, calvary baptist church is on

west 57th street still there. and he was a very prominent man very eminent advisor to president. and so, you know you can do great things when you're in touch with your humanity. >> i was wondering whether when you are doing your research you were able to speak to burner about the book he wrote about his grandfather's? >> no. nor did i want to. because he never met ota benga. he had nothing to offer i was invest in archival evidence and thus all of his grandfather's papers. he didn't deal with evidence. he didn't deal with -- i didn't care what he did or didn't get

it wasn't my interest. this is a historical project so i went back to where i could find, you know there are a lot of people have opinions about what happened to think this or that but they didn't know. i basically went back to the archives. >> thank you for a wonderful talk. i'm just curious if you ever came across any writings of the zoo administrators that this they ever expressed remorse or acknowledge what they did speak was no. no. kind of disappointing because even after ota benga died they were really callous comments made about him being a savage. know, but there was no remorse. but what they did say was doctored up a story of what did happen, and that he went from being a caged exhibit to being

an employee or someone who was there helping out. but no never an expression of remorse. but on the contrary samuel verner had later in life, he lived many years after this and he did express remorse. or so i heard today. i should take that back. his grandson said he expressed remorse. >> good evening. i went to school for minister mir, new york city technical college. ice start india 300 and finished in 86. >> congratulations. >> thank you. -- i started in 83 and finished in 86. i was a dental student. we used a variety of equipment just pieces of equipment.

we have korean students in the class with those and i know that whenever one of the brown kids which is a piece of equipment he would actually wait for someone else to use it and then he would use it. so one day i'm sitting at my desk at my station as we called it, and i said to them why do you always wait for someone to use equipment and i would call someone by name after the used it. in the second i don't want to use it after you. i said, why not? you're an animal. this was 1985. i said what did you say? now come on 17 18 from brooklyn -- [laughter] my initial thought was something different. i didn't have the maturity i did that agenda. i said what are you talking

about? so a couple of if else in the class were black. i said hold on not funny. he said, well you have a tail, right? i said what did you just -- literally, what did you just say? he said you have a tail, don't you? and i said no i don't have a tail. and he said, sure you do. i saw in the book. i said how long have you been in this country? he said six years. sunup no longer funny. the professor stopped the class and no round the circle of her talking to them. andy seth, a professor quotation from and he said, where did you get this from? in the book. he said tomorrow we will bring the book. he brought those books in the referenced have his parents taught him this before he came here to stay clear of brown people.

as i look at the news and i watched cnn and i see the disconnect from brown people. it's not that hard to me. it makes sense. if this is what you were taught and what you think it's easy to do some of the things that are being done. i have two sons and i try to teach them this with knowledge conduct with them and talked about a minute ago about what we do with an average bumper sticker i say one morning i woke up and i said he had came in ahead. i hadn't seen since a graduate in 1986 but he came back to me and i said that's the problem. because there's a doubt somewhere, and being taught. it makes it easier to do some the things that are being done.

[inaudible] >> i used to live in england and i remember what i went there i was sitting at a bus stop and nobody saw me and she's black and she was in england -- sundeck where are you from? i told her. she said what do you do? i said i'm a midwife or she said, i'm so glad. she said, when making your there weren't -- when i came here there were a lot of black people in england and they thought we entails. and she said to i'm so glad that more black people are coming here and babies are being born in the hospitals so they can see that we don't have any details. because they thought -- any tales. this was 1962.

they thought that when we were born black people, our tails were removed. she was so happy. she said i'm so glad you are here, and you know -- >> and you didn't have a tail. [laughter] >> and good evening. definitely look forward to reading your book. a couple of questions. where was he buried? and it is remains ever go back to congo speak with you guys are asking questions that are so contested. so he had a proper funeral because he was a beloved member of that community. and he had -- he was buried in a segregated cemetery, and but

today they are not quite sure if his remains are still there because it was so overgrown, and there's oral history that suggests that he was reinterred and taken to another cemetery that had a popular with the lynchburg community. so we have actually been searching and lynchburg. if you go to lynchburg and you say ota benga, everyone knows who he is. but today he is still just an adored figure and everyone wants to know where he is. i don't know. there's even a clue people are prepared to take dna evidence you know, a dna test, yeah, it is said that deep there. we knew it he was buried somewhere in lynchburg in one of two cemeteries.

>> did the congolese government ever reach out or ask for his remains? >> well, evening today? there has been efforts by some to reclaim his remains. >> thank you very much. i cannot deny, reading the cover of the book, and it's hard not to make those linear dies to what's happening today, it's been happening all along. i say that because even our president of the united states them many times over the last eight years he's been caricatured as a monkey -- >> and so has his wife. >> and so has his wife. i saw 12 months ago.

this is an image problem that we have been burdened with in our committee, so that's pretty -- one thing i have to say just this past weekend i heard of the book for years ago it's literally a picture of -- sundeck. >> a horrible period. >> and so -- >> you hear a lot about the south but there's been very little written about was happening here in new york city, which is why i was so interested. i knew that history of the lynchings throughout the south, but i didn't know what is going on here or i knew about -- around the civil when all of those african-americans were beaten and killed by mobs come

and some were hung in trees and hanging in trees in washington square park. i knew that history, but didn't what happened, it seemed like there was a drop off and is just like we're in the progress of -- progressive era, and we are okay. this allows us to look at what was going on in high places and low. but i appreciate your coming out. >> that's the point. what you talk about, that's what i appreciate. mass incarceration seems have a lot to do with blacks that were very comfortable with putting people of color your black and male behind bars whether it's in jails or in prison. even my son said to me it was sitting to my right when i opened this book of 400 pages, a picture book of people hanging

from trees you know, he said when was the last time he opened the book a? i said i haven't opened it in far years because it's so hard to look at. but i appreciate what you've done because this story, telling the story of ota benga gives justice and peace to ota benga. and that's the only way we can honor a man like that. is to tell his story buy his book and read. i really appreciate that spirit that was an important part of the mission, is to tell this story. some other people were telling mr. and i wanted to get close to his voice as i could. >> i wanted to ask you, you made mention of "the new york times" and so many articles that were written about ota benga at the time to however there were a number of african-american -- [inaudible] i was curious about the opinions

regarding ota benga and some the stories or articles that might of been written. >> the black press did write about him. in fact, it was covered nationally. black people did know about this story. because it was covered by practically every paper across the country the "washington post," a st. louis post-dispatch. if you're black anywhere in this country you would've known about ota benga. so the black press did write about them. not a lot but they did. >> thank you so much for coming in today. it's great to hear you. i think i heard some things that spoke to me. in doing this to get things you were hoping why people would pick up on the conversation

around the table, you know, when white people gather around and talk about race speak with i guess i don't do my work like that. i don't sit around thinking what white people should know. i think of all people. i don't, i don't work that way. i don't work thinking this audience but that. i'm sort of a truth junkie to get at the truth. and some of it is uncomfortable even for us. so i don't you know i'm about humanity, you know if we can all get closer to that, you know, that would be a good thing. thank you. >> i think that's it. >> if you want to learn more -- we do have some time. we don't want to cut anyone off. >> i want to ask about how if

any of the -- [inaudible] >> it was a seminary so he was taking a lot of classical academic courses that the school trained missionaries, and had trained many. africans had studied back and started missionaries in africa, but we can see the classics he took. [inaudible] >> that would have been so great. i mean, he may have written something or there's just no record of it. >> you mentioned earlier that the concept of human zoos are

going on. what is that practice to going on? >> the lesson, i mean i don't do research on human zoos. the last one, the last two that i saw were, one was in germany and one was in -- [inaudible] >> into the bronx zoo at any point ever have to pay any punitive damages for -- >> who would they pay to? >> item the. did the city had been with anything? i don't know. >> the city supported the zoo too. >> i want to ask you if you give us insight to what your next project is? >> i wish i had insights into my next project. part of it will be to sleep a little bit