| Description |
1 online resource (x, 420 pages) : illustrations (some color) |
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text file rda |
| Contents |
Prologue: I am the true vine -- Sit down and shut up -- White peoples is hateful -- And still the cry against us continues -- Your momma is dead -- Some serious secrets -- A paying proposition -- He who hustleth while he waiteth -- Comma, colored -- The prodigal sons -- Not one single, solitary, red penny -- Adultery's siamese twin -- Housekeeping! -- Practically imbeciles -- Very good old colored woman -- Wilbur and John -- God is good to me -- Epilogue: markers. |
| Summary |
A true story of two albino African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a decades-long struggle to find them and to get justice for her family. The year was 1899, and the old people told the story: the place, a sweltering tobacco community in the Jim Crow South called Truevine, where everyone they knew was either a former slave or a child or grandchild of slaves. Though the narrative of George and Willie Muse has been passed down for over a century, no writer has ever gotten this close to the beating heart of their story and its mysteries: Were they really kidnapped and put into servitude by the circus? How did their mother, a black maid toiling under the harsh restrictions of segregation, bring them home? And why, after getting there, would they ever want to go back? At the height of their fame, the Muse brothers performed for British royalty and headlined more than a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were fine musicians and global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success hinged on the color of their skin and on the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even 'Ambassadors from Mars." Beth Macy is a master chronicler of life in the South, and her exclusive interviews and sources make for a riveting American story about race, greed, and a mother's love. These were two little boys born in a brutal time, sharecropping a field in the segregated South, stolen away by a white man offering candy, and set on a path of events that would forever change their lives--and their family's destiny.--Adapted from dust jacket. |
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Tells the true story of George and Willie Muse, two albino African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a twenty-eight-year struggle to get them back. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-404) and index. |
| System Details |
Requires Boundless App. |
| Subject |
Muse, George, 1890-1971.
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Muse, Willie, 1893-2001.
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Muse, George.
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Muse, Willie.
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Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows -- History.
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Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows. |
| Chronological Term |
1900-1999 |
| Subject |
Circus performers -- United States -- Biography.
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African American entertainers -- Biography.
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Albinos and albinism -- Biography.
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Kidnapping -- United States -- Case studies.
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Circus performers -- United States -- 20th century -- Biography.
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Children of sharecroppers -- Virginia -- Biography.
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Albinos and albinism. |
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Children of sharecroppers. |
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Circus performers. |
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United States. |
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Virginia. |
| Genre |
Electronic books. |
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Biographies.
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Biographies.
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Biography.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Electronic reproduction of (manifestation): Macy, Beth. Truevine New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2016 9780316337540 (NjBwBT)bl2016036013 (OCoLC)939705356 |
| ISBN |
9780316337533 : $84.00 |
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0316337536 : $84.00 |
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