Ota Benga was an African man from Congo that was purchased by a white expeditioner, Samuel Phillips Verner in 1906, during the horrendous reign of King Leopold II in the memoir spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk. Ota Benga was to be placed as an exhibit at the Bronx Zoo with orangutans and placed as part of the world's fair in St. Louis. The Bronx Zoo needs to find a way to commemorate Benga for all their wrong doing and tell the truth about what they did to Ota Benga. The Bronx Zoo in New York needs to have a remembrance of Ota Benga by having a plaque that tells his story because in the 20th century his rights were violated as a human, leading him into having PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Benga became the object of pointing fingers, audible gasps, and bellowing laughter. Alone and locked in a monkey house cage he could, in the September Indian summer heat, smell the stench of ape feces, urine, and musk laced with foreign odors of hundreds of spectators packed into the steamy, cramped quarters. (Newkirk 12) …show more content…
This violates the rights of where everyone is entitled to the same rights and freedom from article 2 of the universal declaration of human rights. Benga was being treated as an animal, living, and eating like an animal in a small locked cage, which caused Benga to have trauma, along with being completely humiliated in front of many people. From all of this trauma happening inside of the Bronx Zoo, the Zoological society needs to commemorate Ota Benga, showing that something like this can never happen again and never be forgotten. The Natural History Museum and Dartmouth’s Hood Museum has Benga’s image and history, unlike the Bronx Zoo, where his captivity has