EP 2 Monemia McKoy - A Mother's War | Women And Resistance

This is a story about Black motherhood as resistance. About the legal limits of so-called “freedom.” About the Freedmen’s Bureau — what it promised, what it delivered, and where it catastrophically failed. And it’s about the unbroken thread that runs from Monemia McKoy to Mamie Till-Mobley to Sybrina Fulton to every Black mother who has ever had to fight for the right to simply keep her child.

In This Episode

*Who Monemia McKoy was — and why her name deserves to be spoken alongside the great resisters of history
*The sale and commodification of conjoined twins Millie and Christine from infancy 
*Monemia’s transatlantic journey to reclaim her children from England
*The 1865 Freedmen’s Bureau custody trial — what Jacob and Monemia did right, and how the system still failed them
*The shrewd legal strategy behind the McCoy-drafted contract with Ladd & Cartwright
*The chilling reversal by Bureau agent Clinton Cilley — and what it reveals about Reconstruction justice
*The legacy of Black motherhood as a political act across centuries

Takeaways

*The story of Monemia McCoy and her conjoined twin daughters
*The impact of slavery and racial capitalism on Black families
*The resilience and activism of Millie and Chrissy McCoy
*The fight for dignity and recognition beyond exploitation
*The importance of preserving and telling Black history from Black perspectives

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Story of Monemia McCoy
03:13 The Birth of the Conjoined Twins
07:23 The Sale and Exploitation of the Twins
11:11 The Journey to England and Legal Battles
15:27 Reunion and Life After
21:05 The Unique Bond of Co-joined Twins
23:11 Life as Performers and Their Artistic Journey
28:50 Emancipation and Taking Control of Their Lives
32:13 Defining Their Identity Beyond Spectacle
36:44 Legacy and Philanthropy in Their Community
40:16 Facing Mortality and Final Reflections

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:03.158)
Yes greetings greetings greetings and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. I am your host Adesuji Ikinla and with me as usual before she goes into character is Aya Fabore, Obara and Eli Esquire. Welcome.

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:23.931)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (00:25.368)
So this week, I suppose we have to propose this conundrum. Imagine this. In the 1880s, you're an enslaved woman. You've already buried the idea of freedom, of had it buried for you. You have given birth to nine children. You know what it means to have your body treated as property, your love treated as a liability, and then your youngest.

Your conjoined twin daughters, barely 10 months old, are sold not to a neighbor, not even to someone in the same state, nor the same country, but they're sold to a showman, exhibited, bought, stolen, traded, kidnapped, and eventually trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to England. That is the story of Manamiere McCoy.

And that's the story we're looking at today. So welcome.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:30.043)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:33.058)
For those who are probably just coming across your story for the first time, could you just take us to the beginning? As in, who is Monomere and how did this story come to be?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:51.003)
Good evening and

Adesoji Iginla (01:55.8)
Good evening.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:56.003)
It's a pleasure to be here.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:03.298)
My name has been written in many ways. Some have remembered me as Monemia. Some have written my name as Movenia.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:22.976)
I

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:27.628)
I was an enslaved woman.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:40.15)
When I tell the story of what happened to my children.

It is different and yet the same from the stories of what happened to me and my people.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:01.23)
See, my mother

was not what they will call a full Negro.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:15.67)
In my blood from my mother's side there was some Indian woman.

And there was also some white blood.

And there was so also some African blood.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:35.982)
Because my grandmother had been raped by a white man.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:42.456)
Much later, people would talk about my children and the nature of their hair as they began to dig into.

who they are and where they came from.

I was born enslaved.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:10.044)
And I was married to another man who also was enslaved. I was enslaved in Columbus County, North Carolina, near a place today that is still called Whiteville.

On a land, on the land of a man called Jabez Mackay. But my husband was Jacob McCoy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:44.592)
by the time my children who would

make my name even one that anybody would want to know where born. I'd already had eight other children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:03.992)
All of us, my husband and I and our children, all belonging to someone else. Back then, when the white owners would vote, and of course, just the white men, because even their women did not have the right to vote, they could vote, cast one vote for themselves, and then they would cast.

Three-fifth votes for every Negro man they had enslaved. And so one white man could have four votes, five votes, ten votes, just depending on how many of my people they owned.

Adesoji Iginla (05:56.942)
Yeah, I'm enslaved.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:00.406)
We were listed as chattel on invoices, on sales receipts, put up as collateral for loans and the like.

Well, we could still be counted for voting purposes, but not for our own means.

And we carried along in this manner, not knowing when the dark night of slavery would end.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:38.7)
It was 1851 and I was pregnant again. Nothing unusual. In fact, our owners liked for us to stay pregnant because that actually enriched them.

There was nothing much unusual with this pregnancy, or even initially with the birth.

And it was Hannah, a trusted midwite negro woman who attended to all of us when we went into labor.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:19.472)
Who first saw the child presenting with their stomach first?

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:31.908)
That child we named Christine. We called her Chrissy, and

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:39.748)
But as the child came out, and Hannah attempted to

Get the afterbirth out. There presented another child. This one breach.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:01.828)
Goodness. Twins?

Two heads, two faces, two cries.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:20.538)
Four arms and four legs, but one body co-joined at the lower spine.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:33.08)
What is going on?

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:40.664)
Most were not sure how to respond.

But I saw my daughters.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:50.776)
I did not see curiosity, I did not see wonder. I did not see the freaks they were called.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:08.816)
I saw Christine and I saw Millie.

Millie was smaller and the one who came second. Christine was stronger and the one who came first.

Adesoji Iginla (09:28.206)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:32.548)
Weighed together, they weighed about seventeen pounds, with Christine being the much larger of the two.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:47.374)
They checked again. Could it really be that they are joined?

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:55.822)
Yes, they are.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:02.416)
I called them a miracle, even though the world saw it as impossible, should they be even allowed to live. I took my daughters and I wrapped them and I fed them. I knew from birth how intelligent they were, for their eyes would follow me.

I learned how to turn them to keep them comfortable, for they were connected right at the base of their spines and from their pelvic area. So everything was two, except they shared a pelvis and they shared their lady parts.

Adesoji Iginla (10:49.037)
too.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:04.942)
I loved and cared for my children, but already I

Master Jabez was already thinking about how to capitalize on my children.

Some of you may know the prayer of Jabez, O Lord, that you may enlarge my territory, and perhaps that is what he saw when he saw my children.

Remember, this was a time when white people routinely had human zoos and all other kinds of ways that they would exploit those that they thought to be different.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:02.69)
Slavery did not just steal the labor of my husband and I and our children.

Slavery also stole our right as parents to protect our children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:27.63)
When my girls were just ten months old, Jabez McKay sold them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:38.7)
It is my understanding that the agreement was that I, their mother, would stay with them. They were still just babies. He sold them for one thousand dollars. Sold to a man named John C. Purvis.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:05.648)
Today as I say that name.

Maybe purbus short for perverted, but he wasn't the only one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:18.728)
Later, my children would be sold again. Passed into the hands of showmen, managers, promoters, men who did not see their humanity, but just saw ticket sales.

And in order to justify people buying these tickets, they would examine my children with less care than one might examine a hog or a horse or a mule.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:06.766)
When my children were stolen and carted off.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:20.462)
I cannot.

impress upon you the wound.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:32.346)
For weeks I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep, crying for my babies. Breasts still full of milk, breasts that remembered the mouths of my children, the arms still remembering the weight of my babies. My ear, my ear constantly tuned to their cries, but I could not hear their cries.

What would they do with my children? It's bad enough when we're sold off. And you believe somewhere they are alive, enslaved but alive. But what would they do with my miracles?

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:24.364)
It would be a long time before we would get any word about where my babies were.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:35.022)
Taken from North Carolina, moved through, and finally all the way to Canada.

But that was not far enough. Eventually they boarded a ship to Liverpool.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:56.581)
They took my babies and called it business.

For them, they were just an opportunity to make a lot of money.

For others it was a depravity hiding behind the term science and

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:29.516)
What would you call it for a mother?

Aching for her children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:39.726)
While others counted out their money.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:47.992)
My girls were taken to fairs. Have you gone to a fair lately? What do you see at fairs?

Adesoji Iginla (16:57.112)
noise and

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:58.282)
Shown to crowds like you will some kind of prize animal.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:08.186)
They were pointed at

Measured

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:18.778)
Pictures of their Janitalia drawn supposedly for scientific purposes. Every city in which they would be exhibited, the first cause of action would be to gather doctors and people of the scientific field, and they would be given.

Access.

To in their words, examine my daughters, so that they could vouch for their monstrosity.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:09.7)
I would wake up at night in a cold sweat, so sure that I had heard my daughters.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:23.82)
Eventually.

Mr. Smith

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:31.024)
Paid a handsome price for my daughters before they were stolen from him. He decided to leave no stone unturned to get them back, these proverbial cash cows.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:54.574)
When he found out that my children were in England, a place where slavery had been abolished.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:06.244)
He and his attorney figured that if they took me to England with them, I could reclaim my children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:23.552)
As their abductors would not be able to provide any proof that they were indeed the legal guardians. Of course, at this time they had woven so many stories around my daughters, that they were born in Africa, that they were being cared for.

They did come from America, but they were working to be able to buy their parents from slavery. And so every ticket bought was to help my daughters achieve their goal. All manipulation.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:16.962)
In eighteen fifty-three, when my daughters were just two years old, at a North Carolina's first state fair, thousands came through each day.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:31.468)
If he paid a little bit more, you could look under their skirts.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:40.176)
freaks of nature they called them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:46.852)
But I tell you today, as sure as I am of anything, nature and God had not been cruel to my daughters. People were

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:05.39)
It was in New Orleans that they were abducted.

From a man named Brower, who had abducted them from Mr. Smith.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:24.996)
What is a mother to make of these news? My stolen children have been stolen again?

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:38.561)
Imagine this.

Codders, girls, enslaved girls joined together. Where could they run? Where could they hide? Unable to decide who touched them and how, who watched them, who bought a ticket, who examined them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:12.954)
Then they disappeared again.

And then in eighteen fifty four they reappeared in Philadelphia in a museum.

A museum.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:30.124)
Is that a place for two living beings?

But for black bodies in that century, a museum could be a stage with velvet, a a a stage, a cage on the stage with velvet curtains.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:58.7)
Years passed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:08.206)
I'm still working for my enslaver. So is my husband. So are our other children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:18.5)
Joseph Pearson Smith, the legal owner through business dealings of my children, took me along with him to England to reclaim my daughters.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:34.808)
I crossed that ocean, not knowing what to expect.

But aching to see my children again.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:47.428)
I was not a free woman.

Although it is amazing being in this black body, because once I crossed over to England I was now supposedly free, except they had my daughters who

Therefore they had me.

And back home they had my husband and my other children, therefore I was not free.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:24.43)
We had to go to court.

And the kidnappers were actually making a case.

To keep my daughters. But when the judge took one look at me and looked at the face of Christine, who looked more like me, they said they needed no further proof that I was indeed the mother of the girls.

And so my daughters were returned at least temporarily to my care. I stayed with them for a while.

And indeed they continued to be exhibited, for someone had to pay for the cost of this trip.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:31.414)
Eventually, mister Smith.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:47.313)
according to them, drafted a contract that I agreed to for him to keep the girls and for them to continue to be exhibited across Europe while I returned to North Carolina.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:12.592)
Contract that I agreed to?

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:17.868)
Understand that much of what is known about me and my daughters was not written by us, although my daughters did write a biography.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:39.34)
Like my sister.

who was exhibited in England as well.

Adesoji Iginla (26:48.44)
button.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:53.188)
Decades before my daughters.

Who also, it is said, signed a contract.

What does your common sense lead you to believe, understanding the times in which we had we lived?

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:17.006)
My daughters were five years old when I was reunited with them.

Changed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:28.676)
They had been educated by a suffering that they never fully gave words to.

Their bodies still joined.

Their eyes were still mine.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:49.444)
They had figured out how to walk and to run.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:58.149)
They could speak multiple languages.

And even though it had been years since they had seen me, they knew me. They still knew their mama.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:25.358)
We did return to North Carolina.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:31.044)
Where they were reunited with the rest of our family.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:52.186)
But the story was far from over.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:00.502)
In our family, we did not treat them as freaks of nature. They were Millie and Chrissy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:13.52)
called them my girls. Sometimes they refer to themselves as she or they, depending.

But they were my daughters.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:36.886)
Our reunion and our time as a family was not to last too long.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:47.576)
And at this point, my daughters will tell the rest of their story.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:23.248)
Give us a second to get ready.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:29.336)
You know, we are known all across the globe.

We met princes and the queen and dukes and duchesses.

Now, I I'm Millie. I'm the more artistic one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:58.06)
I'm Christine. I did almost all of our correspondence.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:08.324)
I'm also the stronger one. When we were kids, I learned how to carry Millie here on my back.

But they told us not to do that too much, especially as we got older. Because Millie actually got stronger. Yes, I did get stronger. And I was always the one who had the more sense. Talking about sense.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:42.487)
On almost all the advertisements about us, the thing they would focus on, well, once they got past the monstrosity part of it, was how intelligent we were. What did you expect to

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:03.384)
And I know till today there are some who are still marveled at the intelligence of anyone who appears Negro to them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:17.124)
We wrote poems, I'm merely speaking by the way. And I would always say to Chrissy, Chrissy, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, Chrissy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:33.422)
They eventually wrote a book about us, and that's exactly what they titled it. But I dictated quite a bit to Chrissy. Chrissy always had great penmanship. Yes, Millie. And sometimes you would talk so fast as though you couldn't figure out that I actually had to write everything down. At any rate, Millie and I, we were never bored.

Adesoji Iginla (32:38.764)
increase.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:02.832)
'Cause we always had each other.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:08.516)
But Millie, Millie was the one with the temper. For the most part, everyone always talked about how amiable we were. Just how wonderful it was to be around us. yes, we had to be amiable. I would say, looking back now.

It was partly our disposition from God because yes, we are miracles indeed, but also

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:43.824)
When you had to grow up under the circumstances that we did.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:51.483)
Did you not have to find some kind of armor with which to protect yourself? And being amiable and agreeable and likable certainly helped us out more times than I can count. Now imagine where we lived. Pulled away from our mother at such a young age, away from anyone we knew.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:19.768)
We had different, I suppose you would call them nannies today. There was actually even a lady from Cuba, and she was so good to us. She took care of us as best she could.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:34.884)
But we understood that our value was in making the people around us happy, entertaining them.

Adesoji Iginla (34:42.124)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:47.598)
You know

Well, Chrissy, you gonna let me talk at all? Well, I will. Just hold on. You know

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:00.034)
We had at least two shows a day, just like you would born animals. And so we had the afternoon show. So in the morning we would get ready and we had to learn our songs and our dances, and we could dance. I was the better dancer, I was always the artistic one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:27.864)
We worked well together. You know that. Yes, we did. Well, we had a performance in the afternoon, and those ones would typically be for the children and for the women, the ladies.

And then no sooner was that done, we would have to go and get ready for the evening performance.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:58.789)
We were kids performing for eight hours and more a day, and that did not include all the time spent preparing. And this was our life, six days a week.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:25.188)
You could say they invested in us, couldn't you, Chrissy? I mean, we learnt to speak French and Spanish and German and

And we sang songs in all of those languages and we really perfected our dance steps.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:50.116)
I didn't too much mind that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:57.102)
But

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:03.628)
Every time we got to a new place we

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:12.944)
Chrissy will say, Millie, we gotta go. No, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. Those horrible men

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:32.068)
They just wanted a touch.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:39.854)
I guess a polite way would be s to say they examined us, they poked us, they fingered us, they just it was just it was horrible.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:55.185)
Calm down, Millie. You know we have to do this. I don't want to be calm. I hate it. And you do too. And you feel it as I do.

No.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:14.186)
Let me tell you a funny part about how we were built.

Did you know that if you pinched Millie?

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:32.826)
Wouldn't no, I couldn't feel it if you pinched her arm.

Or if you touch the side of her face.

And you know, we could never see each other because the way our bodies were co-joined, we were turned away from each other. Now we did eventually contort ourselves enough to where we could almost walk like a V, but we could not really see each other. And it was a curious thing to the observers that if you touched Millie's arm.

Christine couldn't feel it.

But if you tickled my toes, Millie would laugh as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:29.844)
So we had combined feeling from our pelvis down, but from our pelvis upwards, we were two different people, two fully formed brains. As a matter of fact, one of our acts was there would be this person over here having a whole conversation with Christine, me.

Adesoji Iginla (39:45.869)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:59.001)
And there would be someone else over here having a totally different conversation with Millie. And we could have those conversations separately and simultaneously for hours. But you know what? There would come a time when we would both say the same sentence at the exact same time. I tell you, we were fearfully and wonderfully made.

Adesoji Iginla (40:16.248)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:33.432)
Mostly we ate the same things all the time, but we really did have different interests sometimes. Like I said, I was the writer. And like I said, I was the artistic one. Well we were both artistic.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:01.676)
It certainly wasn't all fun and games. Although

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:10.926)
The way we were created gave us opportunities.

Probably no other enslaved black girl or boy in the entire history of the United States of America ever had.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:30.5)
Suppose you gotta treat the cash cows well.

People would always come and they say, Well they look happy. Well, for the most part we were. Especially after eighteen sixty five.

Adesoji Iginla (41:46.892)
Why so?

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:47.632)
See?

We were truly free then, because the Emancipation Proclamation had declared me and my people free.

Adesoji Iginla (41:54.862)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:07.962)
We didn't bring up any topics that would

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:15.408)
create any offense for our audience. We were just amiable.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:24.858)
But we were aware.

Adesoji Iginla (42:28.024)
Justice.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:29.58)
And at age fourteen, when we realized we were now in charge of ourselves.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:39.93)
We made a deal. By the way, see Christine's earrings? But these are mine.

Okay, so what we agreed on was from then on, we keep a percentage of our own earnings, and we could read and write, and we paid attention exactly to our earnings. And we decided we were going to take care of our family back home.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:25.294)
We continued to tour. We were seen in so many places. Sometimes the insults got to us, but here's another thing we decided. Christine, if you're gonna tell the story, you've got to tell it all the way true. Well, still, Millie we decided, but yes, you insisted. Millie said.

Adesoji Iginla (43:36.588)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:55.171)
Under no circumstances ever, ever, ever would anyone get to examine us. And that was that. Yes, 'cause once I make up my mind, my mind is made up.

Well

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:18.21)
Mr Smith had died, but

I forgot to tell you that part because I got so excited about something else. Well, Chrissy, maybe I should tell this part 'cause you had your chance. I was always the more serious of the two of us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:42.338)
So at a time when we went back to North Carolina, Mr. Smith died quite suddenly.

And he left in his will really everything to his wife, but then he had all these debts that needed to be paid off. So

They came and they inventoried everything in the home.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:15.78)
The gold teaspoons and the piano on which Mr. Smith used to play and sing, he did have a great singing voice.

And they inventoried all the chattel, including me and my family.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:37.004)
We were listed as being worth twenty-five thousand dollars. And his total estate was worth about sixty-nine thousand dollars.

Well, that also included about twenty eight other enslaved black people.

What do you think happened to pay the debts off? They started selling off some of the people. They did not sell any of my family. Maybe because they had to keep the cash cows happy, I suppose. I don't know. Christine, now you know my Smith was good to us.

Adesoji Iginla (46:05.911)
to work.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:32.58)
That's what they wrote. And who's alive to argue the point now? You know, when white people tell the story, they always have to come out looking good. Now, I won't lie. I don't truly don't have to. Yes, Ma Smith was nicer to us then. I suppose she needed to be, or could have been.

But this whole idea of we wrote that we had two mothers? Hmm well. Okay, so Chrissy, I'm gonna finish the story. So

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:19.417)
Mas Smith was

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:25.772)
was in a tough place financially. And we said we can help. We can go back on the road and make some money. But we weren't just thinking about my smith. We were also thinking about our family. Because if we made the money that allowed them not to sell our family, then our family could be together.

and what a road trip that was. You can't actually call it a road trip, you would have to call it a river trip. We were on the Mississippi River, and there are all kinds of mishaps and people, and this was before 1865, because you know Chrissy skipped that part.

And part of what we would see on that trip would be other black people chained in chain gangs and shackled.

And ferried across in pens with the animals.

Adesoji Iginla (48:43.182)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:48.964)
And you better believe that we knew that all that kept our brothers and sisters and our parents from the same fortune might be what we are able to do and earn.

And so we sang and danced and smiled. And we had the most amazing pearly whites. They would write about it all the time. They would write about our twinkling eyes and our pearly whites. And they would dress us up. And sometimes our hair were in ringlets, and sometimes we had.

You know, just ornaments and things and flowers and posies.

Adesoji Iginla (49:34.67)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:38.011)
But eighteen sixty five with our emancipation, we said now we get to take control of our lives. But we still needed a manager, you know, someone who was good with the business of exhibition. But you've got to wonder what is it about a people that revel so much in

Adesoji Iginla (49:58.05)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:07.576)
in what they called monstrosities. You know, our lives growing up.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:16.046)
Sometimes we were exhibited with giant women and giant men and bearded women and dwarfs and you know whatever they could find out in nature, anyone who looked different.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:35.032)
It taught us a lot.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:41.508)
Because in close quarters with all of those people, you just realized we all wanted to be loved. And we eventually attended the wedding of two giants. And when they had their children, their first child was a giant as well. Unfortunately, their second child died. I never knew what eventually happened to them. But they were our family.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:18.638)
Okay, Millie, can I speak now?

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:26.202)
Can always speak. We can both speak at the same time. Wanna try it? No, we're not gonna do that tonight. Okay, so we continued to travel around the world, and then we eventually came back to the United States of America, and we traveled with Barnum's museum and

At this time, of course, we were getting older. We were almost thirty years old. Now

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:01.796)
We had an unfortunate incident when we were still teenagers, but after our emancipation, where we had an abscess.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:20.548)
We did everything we could not to be seen by a doctor. But it hurt so bad.

Adesoji Iginla (52:24.846)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:31.404)
Millie just wouldn't let us see a doctor. Yes, because they would always you know what they did.

Well, we had to. And it was a Dr. Pan Coast.

We eventually we eventually allowed him to examine us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:01.08)
It wasn't enough for them to have artists who would draw our genitalia. They wanted to now take pictures.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:15.408)
I said no.

Christina said let's get it over and done with.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:24.184)
And so there is a picture. You can probably find it on this thing you cause called the internet.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:38.382)
Tell it because Millie still can't stand that it happened. It's a picture of us naked from the waist down.

We had on knee high socks and laced up boots.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:00.677)
But Millie insisted on cloths to cover our chests. And if you see that picture.

And you pay close attention.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:18.796)
My head was hung down in shame.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:24.854)
Millie's Millie's face was held up and indignant. she was fit to be tight, but we had so much pain and we really did need some medical assistance. They said it was a fistula.

Probably from where our bodies were trying to make another whole, but instead this had obsessed over time. It had to be taken care of.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:09.312)
Now, I do want to say this about us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:19.512)
Where they may have seen us as freaks.

We saw ourselves as miracles. And we did everything to perfect our art. We were performers. We were not just on exhibition. And today, you all pay a handsome price to go and see people perform. And that's what we evolved ourselves into. Not the

Two-headed Nightingale, which they called us because we sang so well, not the African two-headed beasts, which initially some would call us, but as two very cultured, talented young women. And that is how we carried ourselves. And we wanted to bring pride to our race and to our people.

Now we used our savings and we bought the entire plantation that my parents worked and on which we were born. We bought that plantation for our family. And we sent money home and we built ourselves a grand old house. And yes, I was in charge of choosing the furnishings and decorating the home just to our liking.

We even sued at a time when we felt like we were being libeled. Like you don't get to do that to us. We are human beings as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:03.236)
There was a concern about what happens to co-joined twins. Because there was a Hungarian set of twins that were co-joined and they only lived till they were 21. And then there were the

Adesoji Iginla (57:18.382)
So I miss.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:19.158)
Saiz meets twins, Chiang and Eng, who also performed for a long time, and they too saved their money and bought a farm, they got married and they had children, each of them. Yes, they did. Now we never chose to, but the concern always was: can co-joint twins ever be separated?

Now in the case of Chang and Aang, it was really just like a three-inch band, they said, that connected them. And they thought it had stretched out enough and maybe they could separate them. But it never happened because it was still too risky. But the fear was always if one twin died, the other will follow right after.

Adesoji Iginla (58:00.728)
several.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:15.7)
And Chang, who had become an alcoholic, who knows? Maybe he drank just to deal with the effort that it took to always be on display. he died first, and Eng kind of panicked and lost his mind, and he succumbed shortly after. Well, in their case, after they died.

Adesoji Iginla (58:26.894)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:44.438)
Even though they had sworn their family to never exhibiting them again, no, here come these scientific folk and they take their bodies, and they still wanted to examine and experiment and exhibit and all of that. That was never going to happen to us, right, Sissy? We agreed. We were going to do everything to make sure that didn't happen.

Yes, because I would rise from my grave and hunt anyone. We were already exhibited as human beings walking this earth. We were going to have our peace and death.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:30.006)
Well, we soon left show business. After we felt we had saved enough money, our families were free and we're now working our own land. And we retired to our own home.

And let me tell you, we were committed to making a difference. Would you like to know some of the work that we did? We donated, we helped build schools and churches for our community. We wanted to make sure that all the black kids have the opportunities that we had.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:05.838)
Please do.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:19.374)
Without having to give up their lives in the ways that we did. We gave money to Shaw University, to Johnson C. Smith University. We gave money to Bennett College. We funded so many different programs and opportunities for our community because it was important to us.

Henderson Institute was one, Palmer Institute, and most of the time we would give this money and they would not even know where the money came from. Because what was important was the work that needed to be done and not that we got any kind of accolades for it.

This is what we did.

And we we're devout Christians.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:22.956)
in nineteen twelve, well it was about nineteen eleven when Millie got really sick.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:36.205)
Yeah. See that house that we had built? Well, there was a little issue, and the house went up in flames. Now we made it out of the house, but all of our memorabilia and all of the items that we had brought back from all our travels around the world.

They went up in flames. Now, my sister Clara, our sister, she used to take care of us and she got out as well. But the house itself could not be saved. Well,

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:26.734)
We were sitting out there on a trunk, shivering in the cold as we watched that house burn. And I do believe that's when I got that cold that I just never shook.

We built a home, a cottage, about six rooms.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:50.916)
But I could not get rid of that cold. I coughed so bad it would keep Chrissy up at night.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:02.82)
The doctors came and they told us what we knew but did not want to admit.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:09.294)
CP.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:12.344)
Looks like I had tuberculosis.

Chrissy, you were so brave.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:22.904)
You never once stopped caring for me, even when I would keep you up all night.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:38.116)
Millie, like what else would you expect? We

Are one soul. Two heads, two brains. We are one soul.

We went away to a sanitarium, that's what they used to do for people with tuberc tuberculosis to see if I could I could get cured, but I didn't. And so we returned to our home.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:11.628)
Everyone knew the dead the end was near.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:20.494)
Hmm.

The United African twins, the two-headed nightingales, the devout Christians.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:35.748)
The philanthropists. Christine, the one in charge of correspondence.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:45.893)
Hm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:50.232)
You know there was a census. It was the first census that we had been around for. Now at this point in the United States history, there had been 13th census taken. This was the fifth one in which black people could be counted as a whole person.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:15.674)
When they came to us, do we count as one or two? Now we would often speak of ourselves in the plural. We said we we but we also felt as one person, and we definitely, even if the technology, the science would allow, we did not want to be dis to be severed, to be separated. This is what God

decreed for us and we were in agreement with it.

We were Millie Christine. Two minds, two temperaments, one shared life.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:03.576)
Well, he said.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:07.992)
It was nineteen twelve.

And we could feel that the time was drawing near.

We had been faithful with everything that life had thrown at us. We had found a way to make something of not just our lives, but to make the lives of others better.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:37.444)
The doctor was summoned, and everybody sat in wake.

I was the first one to notice that Millie had passed peacefully in her sleep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:56.42)
The doctor had sent a message to the governor of the state asking for permission to

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:06.224)
To make me comfortable as I waited my turn to die.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:13.966)
The governor said, Give her as much morphine as needed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:22.416)
Some say I lingered for eight hours, some say seventeen. Nonetheless, I did breathe my last breath.

We were called many things. Carolina Twins, United African Twins, Two-Headed Girl, Two-Headed Nintendo Girl. We were even called the Eighth Wonder of the World. Of course, we were called other names that I choose not to use at this time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:59.525)
Do not remember us as a spectacle.

Remember our songs. Remember that we turned imbalance into dance. You know, our two outer legs were the stronger ones, and our inner legs were strong, but not as strong. We really did learn to move as one. Remember that we made art from what the world tried to mock.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:11.565)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:29.892)
Remember that when the crowd came to stare, we made them listen and

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:42.02)
Do not remember us as

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:49.104)
Freaks of nature.

Remember our words, remember our letters, remember our choices, our refusals, our philanthropy. Remember that we gave to schools because the future of black children mattered more than the curiosity of white audiences.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:11.694)
We were many things. The daughters of Jacob and Movinia.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:22.712)
McCoy, we were aunties. We wrote up our will and we left.

our estate to our nieces, four of them. And we made them promise that we would not be exhibited in death. In fact, we wanted to be cremated just to make sure that no grave robbers came and took us.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:51.33)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:54.628)
Well, my great nephew, Fred McCoy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:01.838)
When we died, they buried us in a specially made coffin, and he kept watch. He paid for a watchperson to keep watch over our graves for nine straight months.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:21.186)
It would be dec decades later that we would be dug up.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:30.242)
At that point we truly had turned back into dust. There was just very little left of our bones, and there was that co-joined vertebrae.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:42.638)
And they recovered our rings.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:49.712)
And they put us in another pine box that remains. And they buried us in a cemetery that you can still visit today with a big tombstone.

And today there's actually a marker as you approach Whiteville. It says the Carolina Twins, five miles down.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:21.272)
And wouldn't you believe it, when Fred died in nineteen eighty-three, they buried him not too far from us where he's still keeping watch over our graves.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:39.31)
We are Millie and Christine McCoy. And we thank you for listening to our story tonight.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:48.886)
Yes, thank you for highlighting the pains of Black people in the United States, or what will become the United States, and the crushing machinery that is American racial capitalism, because we see it in all forms. We saw the slavery angle, the legal coercion, institutional betrayal, buts.

The mother did not stop, and the kids, Milly and Christy, did not stop as well. So yeah, that's what we do here, Women and Resistance. This is the story of three women who had to tell their stories. And what's the name of the book again? Just in case people would start.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:43.642)
There actually, so there's a book that we wrote that is harder to find. And I say we wrote because lots of things change. So take everything that you read with, read it with the common sense of the history of the times. But this book is by Joanne Martel called Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I should say this.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:48.558)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:12.194)
Most of the stories of people like us have been written by white people.

And definitely definitely written through their lens. There is much work for you all to do. To find our stories, to go through the archives, and to tell our stories with our own sensibilities.

Stolen by white people, owned by white people, exhibited by white people, exhibited mostly for white people, and they are still the ones telling our stories.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:01.089)
Yes, this is a picture of us. And there are many others that exist. But this is of us when we were much younger.

I don't know if anybody who is watching has any questions. We're amiable. We will answer your questions tonight. We won't sing tonight, but we will answer your questions. So if you have a question, go ahead and type your question and we will answer it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:40.91)
I did tell them. Did you? Yeah. I did she tell you it's Millie. Did Christine tell you that we spoke seven languages? No.

Yes, we did.

Two enslaved black girls. Yes, we did. The thing that I remember most well this is Millie. The thing that I choose to remember most. Cause some things I really don't want to remember.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:18.66)
Was just how amazed they would be at our intelligence.

No song, no song. No. We don't feel like performing today. But we'll talk with you, but we're not gonna perform today. But it was just

One of the things I think that really pushed the ticket sales once people got to see us wasn't just that it were, you know, I mean, yes. Two heads, two bodies, whatever, with you know four legs and in their coat joints. Certainly, yes, that's an attraction enough. But people would soon have gotten on board with that. What really got them going.

Was how intelligent we were.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:16.176)
I want to say to any young people who might happen to watch this, don't let their limitations limit you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:31.396)
They may not have seen our full humanity, but we saw and honored ours. And we, like I said, we were committed to being the best versions of ourselves. And we stayed that way till we took our last breath, always talking to the young people about the importance.

of developing their minds and doing the best with what they had.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:13.104)
Okay. I had some technical issues over here. so that said, we will we've come to the end of this week's episode. Next week we'll be looking at the lives and times of Elizabeth Toureau. Elizabeth of Tureau. who she is, what her story is, we will delve into next week. Until next week.

When we come through again, final word to

Mano yeah?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:18.448)
To the parents, all our children are miracles from God.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:28.912)
Treat them as such. Love the black children.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:38.138)
Don't ever give up on them. Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:42.824)
Thank you and good night and God bless.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:56.306)
Yeah.