Scientific and cultural elites, meanwhile, saw nothing wrong. “Neither the Negro nor the white man is related to the monkey, and such an exhibition only degrades a human being’s manhood,” he declared. Black minister James Gordon attacked the presentation for propagandizing on behalf of Darwinian evolution, which he regarded as “absolutely opposed to Christianity.” It also drew protests from Black and white clergy. The display attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. Two years later, an African named Ota Benga was exhibited in a cage next to an orangutan in the Bronx Zoo primate house. Some were even presented to the public as “missing links” between humans and apes.
Scientists offered them as examples of lower stages of human evolution. Louis World’s Fair to be put on public display.
In 1904, thousands of indigenous people were brought to the St.
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