More than a century after it drew international headlines for exhibiting a young African man in the monkey house, the Bronx Zoo in New York has finally expressed regret.
Ota Benga was kidnapped from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1904 and taken to the US to be exhibited.
He was exhibited in the zoo as part of the animals and was kept in captivity with the monkeys at the zoo. He lived equal with the monkeys.
8 September 1906 was the day Ota Benga was first exhibited and he was released from the zoo on 28 September 1906.
Mr Samper who is now in charge of the Bronx zoo says: “We deeply regret that many people and generations have been hurt by these actions or by our failure previously to publicly condemn and denounce them.”
He also denounced founding members Madison Grant and Henry Fairfield Osborn, both ardent eugenicists who played a direct role in Ota Benga’s exhibition.
The Bronx Zoo’s founding principals were among the most influential disseminators of specious racial inferiority theories that resonate still.
