Ota Benga - Caged at The Bronx Zoo - In this segment, Black Feminist Women and Men ask: Knowing what we know of Benga and how he discovered his family, what do you think he could have been feeling while on display? With probably no time to grieve and forced to live with wild animals, what would you have done and do you think it would have differed with what you would have been able to do? In this discussion, members focus on "Chapter 3 - Circus Africanus: The Popular Display of Black Bodies," of our text, "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,” by Harriet A. Washington. Randie Henderson was the evening’s moderator. She was joined by Venita Walker, Georgette Moses, Kim Brandon, Joel Jones and L. Michelle Odom. In "Circus Africanus," author Harriet A. Washington examines the various locations and ways in which Black bodies were on public display during the antebellum period of American history. Her examination includes Black bodies on display as medical oddities at zoos, circuses and world fairs, entertaining a fascinated public; as well as in self-service and in the interest of medical science (and sometimes lust). Here we learn the familiar stories of Ota Benga and Saartjie Baartman, as well as lesser known examples of exploitation, including Henry Moss, whose skin was losing its color, Joice Heth, billed by P. T. Barnum as the 161-year-old former nanny of George Washington, and prodigies like musician Thomas Bethune. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Global Black Feminist Reading Circle f/k/a “The National Black Feminist Book Group,” began Session 3 January 20, 2015 and will run through June 9, 2015. Our first selection of the year is Harriet A. Washington’s “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.” Members L. Michelle Odom and Randie Henderson, co-hosts. To catch up on issues discussed in Sessions 1 and 2, please see our video archives at YouTube. The weekly group meets on Tuesdays at 6:30 pm EST. Readers and conversationalists are welcome to join us in the discussion online at Google+ Hangouts on Air or watch the live event on YouTube. Join The Global Black Feminist Reading Circle (community) on Google+ to receive invitations to the weekly Hangout, and access other documents of the group. To facilitate a group session on one of the chapters, contact OurBlackStory@gmail.com. ----------------------------- Email: CONTACT OurBlackStory@gmail.com Google+: JOIN - The Global Black Feminist Reading Circle (Community) https://plus.google.com/b/116212551167955184069/communities/109823766431320278457 Youtube: SUBSCRIBE to The Global Black Feminist Reading Circle's page and view videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsFZtlDNDRuDwZWyZVqy_rg LIKE us on Facebook, where we will re-post group news, topics, videos, etc. Https://www.facebook.com/BlackFeministBooks?ref_type=bookmark #GlobalBlackFeministReadingCircle #MedicalApartheid #RealPeopleRealTalk A Reading For Change Production. Reading OurStory…together.

• published: 06 Mar 2015
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