An issue of the New York Times published on September 10, 1906, chronicled the result:

“Several thousand persons took the subway, the elevated and the surface cars to the New York Zoological Park in the Bronx yesterday, and there watched Ota Benga, the bushman, who has been put by the management on exhibition there in the monkey cage.

The bushman didn't seemed (sic) to mind it, and there could be no doubt that to the majority the joint man and monkey exhibition was the most interesting sight in the Bronx park. Over and over again, the crowd laughed at him. If he wonders why he does not show it.”

In case you think that this is unfairly judging the paper by the standards of today:

...a group of black clergymen took obvious and immediate offence to this display.

Led by James H. Gordon, the group called for an immediate end to Benga’s incarceration.

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