October 22, 2015
By Sharon Chisvin
They were billed (click here)as Ambassadors from Mars, Ecuadorian Cannibals and Sheep-Headed Men, but to Harriet Muse, the two freak-show attractions known in the circus world as Ito and Eko were simply her sons.
George and Willie Muse were genetic anomalies. They were albinos born to black parents and in 1899, when they were just six and nine years old, they were kidnapped from the tobacco fields of Truevine, rural Virginia, and forced to join the circus, according to family lore. Harriet, a poor laundress a generation removed from slavery, spent the next three decades seeking justice for herself and her sons, and trying to bring them home....
