OTA Benga
The zoo in new York has apologized for a black man in a cage for the monkeys, which was kept there in the beginning of the last century. It is reported by CNN.
“We deeply regret that many generations of people were hurt by this action and the fact that we have long refused to publicly condemn it,” — said the President of the Society for protection of nature (Wildlife Conservation Society) Christian Samper. Since the events in question, it’s been 114 years old.
September 8, 1906, the Bronx zoo brought a man named OTA Benga from Central Africa (the territory in which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to the zoo. It for weeks kept in a cage designed for the monkeys. Benga was kept in cruel conditions, for example, often hundreds of people watched as he sits in a cage along with an orangutan, the man practically not released from prison.
Benga was finally freed when blacks demanded the officials to release him, and the prisoner began to frighten visitors. After that, he lived in one of the boroughs priest James Gordon, who actually took care of the African. Benga could not return home, so was forced to stay in the United States. Ten years later the man committed suicide.
In the United States active in the movement Black Lives Matter, advocating for systemic change to combat racism. They also require the reduction of spending on police and increase funding for areas dominated by racial minorities.
