Patrice Lumumba

Biography

Patrice Lumumba was born on 2 July 1925 in Onalua, in the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo, and belonged to the Tetela people. He went to Protestant and Catholic mission schools and a post office training school, then worked as a travelling beer salesman in Léopoldville and for eleven years as a postal clerk in Stanleyville. He wrote poetry with anti-colonial themes, was active in local associations and in 1955 joined the Liberal Party of Belgium. In 1956 he was convicted of embezzling post office funds and served a prison sentence.

After his release he helped found the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958 and soon led it; unlike most rival parties it did not rest on a single ethnic group, and it called for independence and a neutral foreign policy. He attended the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra in December 1958. Arrested in October 1959 for inciting a riot in Stanleyville, he was freed to attend the Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960, which set independence for 30 June. The MNC won the most seats in the May 1960 elections, and Lumumba became the country's first prime minister.

An army mutiny days after independence opened the Congo Crisis, and Katanga and South Kasai broke away. In September 1960 President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed him, and Joseph-Désiré Mobutu then took power in a coup. Lumumba tried to reach his supporters in Stanleyville but was captured, flown to Katanga and executed on 17 January 1961 by the secessionist authorities of Moïse Tshombe together with Belgian mercenaries. Belgium apologised in 2002 for its moral responsibility, and in 2022 returned a tooth, his only remains, to his family.