The Miller and Gaus Company of Chicago mounted one of the most popular “games” at The 1932 Century of Progres, announced well before the fair opened. The venue was called African Dips.

The location opened with multiple “African Dips,” a somewhat well=known racially insensitive version of the dunk tank– i.e. throwing baseballs at African-American men. Despite protests by the Black citizens of Chicago, and boycott of the fair by some for its very visual employment discrimination, the location grossed over $23,000 in its first year (about $570,000 in 2025 money). A similar attraction was introduced at the Panama-Pacific Fair in 1915, and subsequently rethemed after protests.

Darkest Africa Lew Dufour and Joe Rogers brought performers from Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Belgian Congo for a “Darkest Africa” exhibit featuring an African village.





Charlie Lucas, as Prince Woo Foo, was one of the African-American natives, playing a Ubangi chief.

From The Billboard, January 21, 1933:

“Africa’s jungles and deserts, its queer kraals and villages, its ancient arts and weird ceremonies will be brought to Chicago’s lake shore as an attraction for its A Century of Progress Exposition, it was announced by officials of tho fair.

A strip of land 1,000 feet long and 500 feet wide has been reserved between Leif Eriksen Drive and the lake front, just south of Goodyear Field at 36th street, for an all-African exhibition. Surrounding the exhibition area will be a boardwalk, 20 feet high, on which tourists mау promenade, while they look down on the minature African world below. At convenient intervals on the boardwalk there will be settees, parasol-protected tables and chairs.

Along the east end of Little Africa a “Congo River” will wind thru dense jungle, visitors being borne on its surface in canoes manned by dusky natives. One will be able to gaze upon the mysterious walled city of Timbuctoo and tread the village streels of Khartoum in replica.

Other attractions include an oasis, a jungle bar, trader’s and missionaries huts, a Kano fur bazaar, an Africa theater, a Dar Nuba theater, a plantation cafe, a Capetown road, a strand, a carnival and stands and pens of African Jungle beasts.

The towns will be inhabited by scores of natives–workers in iron, ivory and gold, wood carters and fashioners of strange African musical Instruments. In the theaters will be native dancing girls, musicians and other entertainers.

An Adventurers and Explorers Club will serve as a headquarters for African game hunters and other visiting celebrities.”

A small replica of the cabin of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the Black founder of Chicago was also part of the Midway. The exhibit was the result of a determined campaign by the National De Saible Memorial Society, a Black women’s group.