On this day, 17 April 1958, Belgium opened the world fair, which included a ‘human zoo’ displaying Black men, women, and children in their ‘native conditions’ found in the Congo, then a Belgian colony.
The people used were abused and taunted by white spectators, who threw money and bananas over the bamboo fence to try to provoke a reaction. The Congolese people in the exhibit, as well as Congolese workers in the fair, were housed in an isolated building, in cramped accommodation with restrictions on receiving visitors or being able to leave, until the fair ended in October.
It was to be the last ‘human zoo’ to take place anywhere in the world, although earlier in the century others were staged in places like the US, UK, Germany and Norway.
Belgian colonialism in Congo is estimated to have killed 8 to 15 million people.
Learn more about the crimes of Belgian colonialism in the Congo in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/lord-leverhulme-s-ghosts-colonial-exploitation-in-the-congo-jules-marchalhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1966346573550483/?type=3
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