NYC’s Strange History - African Pygmy Once a Zoo Exhibit
It sounds like something straight out of a bad racist joke, but at one point in history - 1906 to be precise - the Bronx Zoo actually put a human being on display in one of their animal enclosures. The human in question was a Congolese pygmy native. On occasion, they’d put this individual in with some monkeys and visitors would have the chance to watch them play together.
Luckily, this didn’t last for long (despite New Yorkers loving the display). One person stood up and cried racism and it didn’t take much for the zoo to shut the entire thing down. It just goes to show - people were a bit different one-hundred years ago, and not always in charming, old-timey ways.
Photo public domain (via Wikicommons)
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