![]() ![]() When night fell and her sons were nowhere to be found, Harriett Muse knew something terrible had happened. The popular story which sprang up in Truevine was that the brothers were out in the fields one day in 1899 when Shelton lured them with candy and kidnapped them. It’s possible that a desperate relative or neighbor sold him the information, or that Harriett Muse allowed them to go with him temporarily, only for them to be kept in captivity.Īccording to Truevine author Beth Macy, the Muse brothers might have agreed to do a couple performances with Shelton when his circus came through Truevine in 1914, but then the promoter abducted them when his show left town. It’s not known for certain how George and Willie came to the attention of circus promoter James Herman “Candy” Shelton. As Black children with albinism, the Muse brothers were at a heightened risk of scorn and abuse. ![]() At the time, lynch mobs frequently targeted Black men, and the neighborhood was always on the edge of another attack. ![]() George and willie muse manual#The boys were expected to help out by patrolling the rows of tobacco plants for pests, killing them before they could damage the precious crop.Īlthough Harriett Muse doted on her boys as best she could, it was a hard life of manual labor and racial violence. Like most of their neighbors, the Muses eked out a bare living from sharecropping tobacco. The boys had begun squinting in the light from such a young age that by the time they were six and nine years old, they had permanent furrows in their foreheads. George and willie muse skin#Against almost impossible odds, both boys were born with albinism, leaving their skin exceptionally vulnerable to the harsh Virginia sun.īoth also had a condition known as nystagmus, which often accompanies albinism, and weakens vision. George and Willie Muse were the eldest of five children born to Harriett Muse in the small community of Truevine on the edge of Roanoke, Virginia. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.Macmillan Publishers George and Willie were displayed under an array of humiliating names, complete with absurd backgrounds tailored to racist beliefs of the time. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever.Ĭaptured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. ![]()
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