Juliet Was Black?

It turns out that Othello wasn't Shakespeare's only African or Moorish character. Below is the official Juliet statue in Verona, by Italian sculptor Nereo Costantini, in 1972. Tourists love to rub her breast for some reason, which is why it is shiny. It has led to accusations that the statue is being sexually harassed.

At her worst, she has looked like the other Munich Juliet (there are two), shown below. This one is near the Marienplatz. All these Juliet statues have suffered damage from too much breast-rubbing. Why do people do this? Because it is supposed to help us be lucky in love, or because it means we will return to this city one day.

Juliet is not the only statue to invite breast-rubbing. There's also Molly Malone in Dublin. Molly is a character in a local song about a fishwife who died young; it is also known as "Cockles and Mussels" or "In Dublin's Fair City." The statue, by Irish sculptor Jeanne Rynhart, was unveiled in 1988 and currently can be found on Suffolk Street.

Other notable figures whom people forget were Black: Alexandre Dumas, Alexander Pushkin and probably King Tut and Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence