The People's War Radio Show, Episode#42: 60th anniversary of the assassination Congo's Patrice Lumumba

Black Power Talks

Patrice Lumumba was elected the first Prime Minister of the Congo and took power on June 30, 1960. Within months, Lumumba was forced out of office. On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was assassinated under the leadership of the United States and other imperial powers.

The assassination of Patrice Lumumba reverberated throughout the African world. In the United States, Africans rushed the floor of the United Nations in protest. In Cairo, protestors surrounded the United States embassy and set an embassy car ablaze. In Belgrade, the Belgian embassy was attacked. In London, people took to the streets and marched in protest from Trafalgar Square to the Belgian embassy. Argued by some to be the most significant political assassination of the 20th century, the murder of Patrice Lumumba was a critical lesson in the rise of neocolonialism.

We talk with Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary General of the African Socialist International about the significance of the Patrice Lumumba and the future of the struggle for African liberation in the Congo.

SG Luwezi was born and raised in the Congo and speaks 7 languages. He is now based in London and works as an educator and organizer in African communities throughout Europe and the continent of Africa.

SG Luwezi has come to be known as Mwalimu, meaning "respected teacher" in Swahili. He writes a monthly column in The Burning Spear Newspaper titled “Kinshasa International” and conducts regular livestream broadcasts to the African nation on Facebook in English and in French.