Millie and Christine McCoy

Ca. 1866

Millie and Christine McCoy were accomplished singers, dancers, and pianists.

Millie and Christine McCoy were conjoined twins born into slavery in Whiteville, North Carolina in 1851. Known as the “Two-Headed Nightingale,” they were put on display in museums and sideshow attractions across the United States and Europe. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the twins’ enslaver refused to free them. When the Civil War ended in 1865, their parents attempted to regain custody with help from the Freedmen’s Bureau.