The Circus Slaves No One Ever Talks About
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2022
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brothers George and Willie Muse were abducted by the famous Ringling Bros. circus. Though many thought the children would be lost forever, their mother demanded justice… and got it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The circus slaves, no one ever talks about. |
| 0:06.0 | This is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in school. |
| 0:11.9 | A mother demands justice for children kidnapped to be circus freaks. |
| 0:18.4 | Brothers George and Willie Muse were abducted by the famous Ringling Brothers Circus, though |
| 0:25.0 | many thought the children would be lost forever. |
| 0:28.2 | Their mother demanded justice and got it. |
| 0:32.2 | In 1914, bounty hunters scoured the Virginia countryside, looking for black children to |
| 0:38.3 | steal and transform into freak show acts for the traveling Ringling Brothers Circus show, |
| 0:46.7 | also known as Barnum and Baleys. |
| 0:50.0 | Matching Albino Brothers George and Willie Muse, age 6 and 9, from the true vine Virginia |
| 0:57.2 | field their family sharecropped, the greatest show on earth had no idea of the hell a black |
| 1:05.2 | mother would raise for her son's state return. |
| 1:10.0 | For 13 years, Harry Muse searched until she found them. |
| 1:16.7 | tragically, an elaborate scheme to keep George and Willie in captivity was well underway. |
| 1:25.5 | The adult Muse Brothers were dehumanized with outlandish costuming, |
| 1:30.6 | prevented from learning how to read or write, and fed lies by their captors that their mother had |
| 1:37.6 | died. Grief, illiteracy, and encroaching blindness subdued the Brothers temporarily, |
| 1:46.3 | but no way would their mother give up her fight. |
| 1:49.4 | When Harriet learned the circus was coming to nearby Ronoke, she disrupted their act, risking |
| 1:56.4 | her own life confronting KKK affiliated policemen to retrieve her long lost children. |
| 2:03.9 | Even as circus executives threatened legal retaliation, Harriet secured the freedom and unpaid |
| 2:12.2 | compensation George and Willie Beezer. Though their subsequent settlement was a pain to enforce, |
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