[African Americana]. [Virginia]

Illustrated Current News. Mother Finds Lost Boys as "Ambassadors from Mars." Two Virginia Children, Willie and Georgie Muse, of Roanoke, Missing for Many Years and Alleged to Have Been Held in Virtual Slavery for the Last Five Years with the Circus... [caption title]

New Haven: October 31, 1927. Photographically-iIlustrated broadside, 16 x 19 inches. Moderate edge wear, a few short, closed edge tears. Very good. Item #2635

An advertising broadside for the Illustrated Current News of New Haven, Connecticut, featuring the infamous Muse Brothers of Roanoke, Virginia. In the early-20th century, George and Willie Muse disappeared from the farm in Truevine, Virginia where they lived with their mother, Harriet. The two young men assisted their mother as best they could with her sharecropping duties, though their albinism and nystagmus (a weakening of vision that often accompanies albinism) prevented them from spending much time in the Virginia sun.

In 1914, a circus promoter named James Herman "Candy" Shelton was in the Roanoke area and spotted the Muse brothers. He and Harriet struck an agreement that they boys would appear in his circus for a period of a few months and then be returned to their farm. It would be the last time Harriet would see her children for over a decade. Shelton effectively kidnapped the young men and forced them to perform in his circus. Shelton often billed the Muse brothers under several insulting monikers, such as "Eastman’s Monkey Men," the "Ethiopian Monkey Men," and the "Ministers from Dahomey." Shelton then managed the brothers as part of the Ringling Brothers Circus, where they acquired their most famous circus name (referenced on the present broadside): "Eko and Iko, the Ambassadors from Mars." Shelton's racist and dehumanizing backstory for the young men was that he had found them in the wreckage of a spaceship in the Mojave Desert. To add injury to insult, the Muse brothers were told that their mother had died.

Through it all, Harriet tried to free the Muse brothers from virtual slavery in Shelton's traveling circus and then the Ringling Brothers for over a decade, but the Jim Crow South did not make her crusade easy. No law enforcement official would take her seriously. Finally, in 1927, the Ringling Brothers circus came through Roanoke, near the Muse home in Truevine. Harriet attended a musical performance put on by George and Willie. Spying their mother in the crowd, the young men dropped their instruments and ran to her. When the police came, Shelton argued that the Muse brothers were his property. Harriet pled her case to the officers, and ultimately won the day. The Muse brothers and their mother were reunited after thirteen years, and returned to their home in Truevine.

The story of Harriet and her sons was recently chronicled in a nonfiction book by Beth Macy entitled, Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crown South (Little, Brown, 2016).

The present broadside features a photograph of the Muse brothers with their mother and Cabell Muse, whom Harriet had married after the brothers were kidnapped. The brothers squint into the sun. Shortly after the family was reunited, George and Willie returned to the circus, but this time on their own terms. They controlled their work, and most importantly their souvenir sales. They were able to provide themselves steady and significant income until their retirement in 1961. No copies of this advertising broadside in OCLC.

Price: $1,000.00