FINDING PAMELA NEWKIRK
FINDING PAMELA NEWKIRK
The story of that man- Ota Benga- is a history that people close to it tried to erase.
More images from Newkirk’ s Archives, including a photo with Phylicia Rashad
In“ Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,” Newkirk reconstructs the life of a Congolese pygmy who was brought to the United States against his will in 1904 and put on display in the Bronx Zoo Monkey House two years later.
“ I knew nothing I did as a daily journalist would top that,” she said.“ So I was starting to think beyond the newsroom.”
She paused and then said:“ I had been to the mountaintop.”
On August 28, 1991, a New York City subway train traveling at over 40 mph in a 10-mph zone, jumped its tracks and crashed. The derailment killed five people and injured over 200 others.
Pamela Newkirk was a member of the New York Newsday team of reporters that covered that subway accident. Their work, which chronicled the frantic rescue efforts, the human suffering, the failings of the subway train driver, and the institutional failures of New York City’ s Transit Authority earned their paper the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting.
With this recognition, Newkirk’ s career had reached another journalism milestone.
But by then her career was beginning to move in a different direction. Newkirk’ s father’ s influence had remained with her. He’ d collected artifacts and memorabilia because he understood that objects carry memories- stories that she wanted to pursue.
Among the things he preserved were letters written to and from Black people, some famous and some who were not well-known.
Some of these fragments eventually found their way into the books Newkirk would write. Among them was“ Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media,” which examined the clash of views between Black journalists and White editors. She’ s also written about love letters written by Blacks over two centuries. She published a book on the failure of corporate diversity efforts, and one about the tragic life of an African pygmy who became a zoo exhibit in New York City.
For generations, a different account of Benga’ s life in this country had been told – one that made Benga a willing participant in his mistreatment. But as Newkirk’ s research- and her resulting book revealed- telling a story and telling it truthfully are not always the same thing.
To get to the truth, Newkirk went looking. She searched archives and found records connected to Benga’ s life. Inside the paperwork were traces of something the dominant narrative about him had failed to reveal: his resistance and fear. Newkirk’ s book documents the inhumanity of his captors, and the humanity of the people who tried to rescue him.
The records of what happened to Ota Benga were there to be found by anyone who really bothered to look. Newkirk did what others failed to do. Her book about his short life is a chilling work of discovery. It is a deeply probing story that defies the historical accounts created by those with something to hide.
Debunking the misinformation and undoing the lies told about Black people is a tension that runs through much of Newkirk’ s work.
The telling of history, especially Black history, is a battle over what will be preserved, what will be believed, and what will be forgotten.
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