Albino brothers from franklin county

P eople looked at the Muse Brothers, Georgie and Willie, and saw something different. Some saw objects of pity.

I n October , the circus came to Roanoke, Virginia. It was a vast affair. There were four locomotives, railcars, 1, people, five rings, six stages, elephants and high-wire acts. Among the attractions arriving in town were two albino African-American men called George and Willie Muse, famous across the United States as Eko and Iko, the sheepheaded cannibals from Ecuador. The 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery in , but in the s the south was at the height of Jim Crow segregation laws. As a result, supposedly liberated African Americans were poor, in effect disenfranchised, often uneducated, and much more likely than white people to be in jail.

Albino brothers from franklin county

In the early s, albino African-American brothers George and Willie Muse were stolen from their home in Truevine and turned into circus performers. No one had ever been able to get the true story of what happened, Macy was told. Furthermore, one of the brothers was still alive at the time. She spent nearly three years researching records in courthouses and online, often with help from friends and former newspaper colleagues. George and Willie Muse, two albino African-American brothers from Franklin County, were either kidnapped by the circus or sold into show business and were exploited for years as they toured the country in sideshows. After being reunited with her sons in after a year search, Harriet sued Ringling Brothers to earn fair wages for George and Willie. By most accounts, the Muse brothers enjoyed the rest of their circus career. They traveled to Europe, performed for the queen of England and spent winters at the Hotel Paradise in Honolulu, Hawaii. They were never paid as much as white performers, but they made enough money to buy land for their mother to live on. First, though, Macy had to be the reporter to get the story. Willie told Saunders that, after his brother George died in , he was tired of being gawked at and talked about. She refused all requests by reporters and historians to interview Willie about his sideshow experiences. Besides, anyone that God had left here for that long, he deserved respect.

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As the s rolled around, circuses started to explode on the American entertainment scene. Forget radio, TV, or movies - they weren't a thing yet. Instead, it was all about the thrill of insane acrobatics, wild animals, and exciting performances that took over people's imaginations. These spectacles were a major event and an eagerly anticipated break, particularly in remote and rural areas where life could be repetitive and dull. For many people at this time, their knowledge of different cultures or unusual creatures existed primarily within stories told around fireplaces or articles read under candlelight.

I n October , the circus came to Roanoke, Virginia. It was a vast affair. There were four locomotives, railcars, 1, people, five rings, six stages, elephants and high-wire acts. Among the attractions arriving in town were two albino African-American men called George and Willie Muse, famous across the United States as Eko and Iko, the sheepheaded cannibals from Ecuador. The 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery in , but in the s the south was at the height of Jim Crow segregation laws. As a result, supposedly liberated African Americans were poor, in effect disenfranchised, often uneducated, and much more likely than white people to be in jail.

Albino brothers from franklin county

In the early s, albino African-American brothers George and Willie Muse were stolen from their home in Truevine and turned into circus performers. No one had ever been able to get the true story of what happened, Macy was told. Furthermore, one of the brothers was still alive at the time. She spent nearly three years researching records in courthouses and online, often with help from friends and former newspaper colleagues. George and Willie Muse, two albino African-American brothers from Franklin County, were either kidnapped by the circus or sold into show business and were exploited for years as they toured the country in sideshows. After being reunited with her sons in after a year search, Harriet sued Ringling Brothers to earn fair wages for George and Willie. By most accounts, the Muse brothers enjoyed the rest of their circus career. They traveled to Europe, performed for the queen of England and spent winters at the Hotel Paradise in Honolulu, Hawaii. They were never paid as much as white performers, but they made enough money to buy land for their mother to live on. First, though, Macy had to be the reporter to get the story.

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She spent nearly three years researching records in courthouses and online, often with help from friends and former newspaper colleagues. Instantly, Ringling lawyers and police burst into the reunion. Another version of the story suggests that Harriett initially allowed Shelton to feature her sons in the circus under the assumption that it was a temporary arrangement and that Willie and George would be returned to her once the spectacle was over. BH News Service. This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Already a Subscriber? Far from progress, this was classic old-school exploitation wrapped up in shiny showbiz. The story began in October , when a ten-foot-tall figure, purported to be a petrified prehistoric man, was 'discovered' on a farm near Cardiff, New York. Shelton, betraying this agreement, whisked the boys away, effectively transforming what might have been a brief adventure into a long-term kidnapping. P eople looked at the Muse Brothers, Georgie and Willie, and saw something different. Charles Sherwood Stratton, an American with dwarfism better known by his stage name, General Tom Thumb, was Barnum's first major "human attraction.

Beth Macy worked doggedly for year to get people to open up to her about the lives of George and Willie Muse. After Willie died in , his great-niece agreed to share the story. George and Willie Muse pose in some of their earlier circus sideshow costumes when their characters, Eko and Iko, were portrayed as savages.

But Harriett, a devoted mother, did everything to keep them safe. Back to homepage. In reality, the figure was a carefully sculpted gypsum statue, secretly buried and later 'unearthed' to create a sensation. Perhaps helping her sons to get away to the circus, thereby escaping this racist world and its dearth of opportunities for African Americans, was the best Harriett could do. Far from challenging these fabrications, the media of the era played a willing role in disseminating them. This wasn't your average museum, though - it was more like an all-in-one zoo, lecture hall, freak show venue, wax museum, and theater. For many, this meant a life on the fringes, with few opportunities for employment or social integration. Lynching, a brutal form of vigilante justice, was rampant in the South, part of a systemic campaign of terror. First, to crush their hopes of reuniting with their family, they were falsely informed that their mother had died. This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. She had long known that she had a good story to tell, but only in writing it did she realise how pertinent it was.