Ota Benga (c. 1883 [2] – March 20, 1916) was a Mbuti (Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo.

Aug 26, 2020 · Ota Benga was kidnapped from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1904 and taken to the US to be exhibited. Journalist Pamela Newkirk, who has written extensively...

On March 20, 1916, a 32-year-old African man named Ota Benga shot himself in the heart while being held against his will in the United States. Benga’s short, sad life was shaped by colonial avarice justified by the quack science of eugenics.

Oct 9, 2006 · A century ago, a Belgian Congo pygmy named Ota Benga was displayed in the Bronx Zoo's monkey cage, an exhibition that outraged black Americans. Producer Joe Richman has this profile.

Jan 13, 2025 · Ota Benga was kidnapped from Congo and brought to America, where he was displayed as an “exhibit” in the Bronx Zoo. His tragic story speaks to the history of European racial ideologies that continue to shape the contemporary world.

Mar 23, 2024 · Ota Benga was a Congolese member of the Mbuti pygmy tribe whose tragic story got international attention when he was displayed as a human zoo exhibit in the United States in the early twentieth century. Ota Benga was born in …

Dec 2, 2008 · In 1904, several Pygmies were brought to live in the anthropology exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair. Two years later, a Congo Pygmy named Ota Benga was housed temporarily at the American...

Sep 22, 2018 · Ota Benga was a teenage boy brought from his homeland in central Africa and displayed like an animal at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, New York. Benga was born sometime in 1883 in the Ituri Forest in what would soon become the Congo Free State (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Mar 26, 2025 · Dignitaries and attendees unveil a historical marker to Ota Benga on Sept. 16, 2017, in Lynchburg. After Black ministers secured his release from the Bronx Zoo, Benga was eventually placed at ...

On Sept. 8, 1906, the Bronx Zoo unveiled a new exhibit that would attract tens of thousands of visitors a day: Ota Benga, an African pygmy. From his life in the Belgian Congo to his death...