Ota Benga

They took him— not for war, not for crime, but for curiosity. A boy from Congo, where rivers hum with memory, and the trees know your name. Ota Benga— smile full of sun, soul full of sky— was stolen, placed in a cage beside an ape while the world laughed. And they called it science. They called it education. But it was cruelty— plain and piercing. He was not a beast. He was a man. A son. A story. His wife murdered. His village burned. His dignity erased by Western hands that claimed to know God. They broke his heart until he broke his body— 1916, a bullet to the chest. Not to die, but to escape a world that refused him humanity. We did not lose a man. We lost a mirror. And it still hurts to look. Say his name— not in pity, but in pain. Let tears fall for what was done and what was denied. Ota Benga— you were never the savage. We were.