Ota Benga: The Story of the Pygmy on Display in a Zoo

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by Jerry Bergman
CRS Quartlery, Volume 30, Number 3,
December 1993, pp. 140-149.

Abstract:

One of the most fascinating historical accounts about the fallout of biological evolution theory on human relations is the story of Ota Benga, a pygmy who was put on display in an American zoo as an example of an evolutionarily inferior race. The incident clearly reveals the racism of evolutionary theory and the extent that the theory gripped the hearts and minds of scientists and journalists in the late 1800s. As humans move away from this time in history, we can more objectively look back at the horrors that evolutionary theory has brought to society of which this story is a poignant example.

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