Monday 30th June 2025 is the 65th anniversary of the independence of the Democtratic Republic of Congo. It occurs just two days before the centenary of its first prime minister, the man who steered them to the precipice of freedom, Patrice Lumumba. Such was the global reverence for him that Omowale Malcolm X declared

“Lumumba [is] the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent. He didn’t fear anybody. He had those people so scared they had to kill him. They couldn’t buy him, they couldn’t frighten him, they couldn’t reach him.” (1)

“Lumumba had become an opponent of Belgian racism after being jailed in 1957 on trumped-up charges by the colonial authorities. Following a twelve-month prison term, he found a job as a beer salesman, during which time he developed his oratory skills and increasingly embraced the view that Congo’s vast mineral wealth should benefit the Congolese people rather than foreign corporate interests.” (2)

He helped found the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party in 1958 and quickly became the organisation’s leader.

“Lumumba’s political horizons extended far beyond the Congo. He was soon caught up in the wider wave of African nationalism sweeping the continent. In December 1958, Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah invited Lumumba to attend the anti-colonial All African People’s Conference, which attracted civic associations, unions, and other popular organizations.

Two years later, following mass demands for a democratic election, the Congolese National Movement headed by Lumumba decisively won the Congo’s first parliamentary contest. The left-nationalist leader took office in June 1960.

But Lumumba’s progressive-populist proposals and his opposition to the Katanga secessionist movement (which was led by the white-ruled colonial states of southern Africa and proclaimed its independence from the Congo on July 11, 1960) angered an array of foreign and local interests: the Belgian colonial state, companies extracting the Congo’s mineral resources, and, of course, the leaders of white-ruled southern African states. As tensions grew, the United Nations rejected Lumumba’s request for support. He decided to call for Soviet military assistance to quell the burgeoning Congo Crisis brought about by the Belgian-supported secessionists. That proved to be the last straw.

Lumumba was seized, tortured, and executed in a coup supported by the Belgian authorities, the United States, and the United Nations. With Lumumba’s assassination died a part of the dream of a united, democratic, ethnically pluralist, and pan-Africanist Congo.

The murder of Lumumba and his replacement by the US-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko laid the foundation for the decades of internal strife, dictatorship, and economic decline that have marked postcolonial Congo. The destabilization of Congolese society under Mobutu’s brutal rule — lasting from 1965 to 1997 — culminated in a series of devastating conflicts, known as the first and second Congo wars (or “Africa’s world wars”). These conflicts not only fractured Congolese society but also engulfed nearly all of the country’s neighbors, ultimately involving nine African nations and around twenty-five armed groups. By the formal end of the conflict, around 2003, nearly 5.4 million people had died from the fighting and its aftermath, making the war the world’s second deadliest conflict since World War II.” (3)

This is why his brutal murder has variously been referred to as “the most important assassination of the 20th century.” (4) This assessment refers not just to his immense stature as a freedom fighter, a visionary but to the landmass that he governed. For example, former Chinese leader Chairman Mao once said: ‘‘if we can take the Congo, we can hold the whole of Africa.” (5) It’s a perspective that is as true now as it was then as the USA brokered “peace deal” with Rwanda (with mercenaries like Blackwater in tow) demonstrates. (6)

To be sure the revolution did not end with Lumumba’s assassination. In addition to international protests over his death, the Simba Rebellion, led by Pierre Mulele and Léonie Abo, was waged in the Congo until the late 1960s, while others like Sis, Andrée Blouin, Lumumba’s chief of protocol and the “group of ten women” agitated elsewhere on the continent. (7)

But the global forces of white supremacist imperialism have contrived to forment chaos both around and within Congo and have shown no intention of stopping. As independent researcher Mafa Kwanisai Mafa asserts:

“The Democratic Republic of the Congo stands at the epicentre of the 21st-century imperialist assault on Africa. The Lobito Corridor is not a development project; it is a colonial railway designed to perpetuate foreign control over Congolese wealth. The struggle to liberate the DRC is the struggle to liberate Africa itself. As Fanon declared, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it” (Fanon, 1961). The mission of this generation is clear: to dismantle neocolonialism, overthrow imperialist domination, and secure true sovereignty for the people of the Congo and all of Africa.” (8)

He further suggests that “Victory lies in revolutionary unity, political consciousness, and unwavering resistance to imperialism in all its forms.” Again, we need look no further than Patrice Lumumba himself who exemplied this in his letter to beloved wife, Pauline. With his life, and that of his aides Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo literally on the line, he composed a moving testament of Black love and a defiant declaration hope and our ultimate, resolute victory, which we share here in its entirety:

“My dear wife,
I am writing these words to you, not knowing whether they will ever reach you, or whether I shall be alive when you read them.
Throughout my struggle for the independence of our country I have never doubted the victory of our sacred cause, to which I and my comrades have dedicated all our lives.
But the only thing which we wanted for our country is the right to a worthy life, to dignity without pretence, to independence without restrictions.
This was never the desire of the Belgian colonialists and their Western allies, who received, direct or indirect, open or concealed, support from some highly placed officials of the United Nations, the body upon which we placed all our hope when we appealed to it for help.
They seduced some of our compatriots, bought others and did everything to distort the truth and smear our independence.
What I can say is this—alive or dead, free or in jail—it is not a question of me personally.
The main thing is the Congo, our unhappy people, whose independence is being trampled upon.
That is why they have shut us away in prison and why they keep us far away from the people. But my faith remains indestructible.
I know and feel deep in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of their internal and external enemies, that they will rise up as one in order to say ‘No’ to colonialism, to brazen, dying colonialism, in order to win their dignity in a clean land.
We are not alone. Africa, Asia, the free peoples and the peoples fighting for their freedom in all corners of the world will always be side by side with the millions of Congolese who will not give up the struggle while there is even one colonialist or colonialist mercenary in our country.
To my sons, whom I am leaving and whom, perhaps, I shall not see again, I want to say that the future of the Congo is splendid and that I expect from them, as from every Congolese, the fulfilment of the sacred task of restoring our independence and our sovereignty.
Without dignity there is no freedom, without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.
Cruelty, insults and torture can never force me to ask for mercy, because I prefer to die with head high, with indestructible faith and profound belief in the destiny of our country than to live in humility and renounce the principles which are sacred to me.
The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations.
It will be the history which will be taught in the countries which have won freedom from colonialism and its puppets.
Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.
Do not weep for me. I know that my tormented country will be able to defend its freedom and its independence.
Long live the Congo!
Long live Africa!
Thysville prison
Patrice LUMUMBA” (9)

(1) Omowale Malcolm X (28/06/64) Speech at the OAAU Founding Rally. https://www.icit-digital.org/articles/malcolm-x-s-speech-at-the-oaau-founding-rally-june-28-1964
(2) Saíd Husaini (24/01/20) Why They Killed Patrice Lumumba. https://www.cadtm.org/Why-They-Killed-Patrice-Lumumba
(3) Ibid.
(4) Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (17/01/11) Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination; Maurice Carney (06/08/18) Was Patrice Lumumba’s assassination the most important of the last century? https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/was-patrice-lumumba-s-assassination-the-most-important-of-the-last-century–19397
(5) George W Ball (1982) The Past Has Another Pattern Memoirs. W. Norton & Company. p. 322. https://archive.org/stream/BallGeorgeThePastHasAnotherPatternMemoirs/Ball%2C+George+-+The+Past+Has+Another+Pattern++Memoirs_djvu.txt
(6) Julian Pecquet (28/05/25) Trump’s Congo deal risks putting minerals before justice, critics warn. https://www.theafricareport.com/384927/trumps-congo-deal-risks-putting-minerals-before-justice-critics-warn/; Nicholas Mwangi (20/04/25) Congolese activists decry US-Congo mineral deal. https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/20/congolese-activists-decry-us-congo-mineral-deal/; Nuvpreet Kalra (20/02/25) Another Blackwater? Nearly 100 U.S. Mercenaries are in Gaza Right Now. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/20/another-blackrock-nearly-100-u-s-mercenaries-are-in-gaza-right-now/
(7) Connie Crothers (2010) Abbey Lincoln and Freedom Now. Against the Current 149, November-December 2010. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/3101.html; Emery M. Kalema (2019) The Mulele “Rebellion,” Congolese Regimes, and the Politics of Forgetting. https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/26915; Patrick Ndungidi (30/06/24) Tribute to the women pioneers of DRC independence – African Shapers. https://africanshapers.com/en/tribute-to-the-women-pioneers-of-drc-independence/. The author lists the ten women as: Marie Therese Ilondo, Anna Kembe, Joséphine Maya Kapongo, Antoinette Kidawaza, Anne Mukanda, Marie Jeanne Feza, Veronique Kani, Emily Ekwekele, Marie Ofela & Victorine Njoli.
(8) Mafa Kwanisai Mafa (31/01/25) Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and the Struggle for the Liberation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. https://www.modernghana.com/news/1376245/imperialism-neocolonialism-and-the-struggle.html
(9) Patrice Lumumba (1961) Letter from Thysville Prison to Mrs. Lumumba in The Truth about a Monstrous Crime of the Colonialists. Foreign Languages Publishing House. pp. 230-231. https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/lumumba/1961/xx/letter.htm

we ask the question:

Patrice Lumumba@100: Impact & Legacy

1) How do we assess Patrice Lumumba’s role in 20th Century politics?
2) Can they really “hold the whole of Africa” if they “take the Congo”?
3) Do we need to foster “revolutionary unity, political consciousness, and unwavering resistance to imperialism”?
4) Is the current leadership up to this task or will it come from elsewhere?

Our Special Guests:

Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and an Afrikan-Centred Education Consultant. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of almost 40 years standing and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Approach To Excellence.

Bro. Jean-Jacques Lumumba: is the grand-nephew of one of Congo’s independence leaders Patrice Lumumba, who was executed seven months after becoming Congo’s first democratically elected leader in 1960. At barely 30, he held a comfortable position as a bank executive in one of DRC’s largest banks. It was his refusal to cooperate with the misuse of public funds that turned his life upside down. In June 2016, fearing for his life, Lumumba fled to Europe. He now lives and works in European exile. He is fighting for the rule of law in his country and for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to know peaceful and democratic times.

Sis. Francine Mukwaya Sodi: started her activism over a decade ago. She is the founder of Kitunga Ya Mboka, a Lingala phrase meaning, ‘basket of the country, a grass roots, community centred organisation that provides basic level of assistance in the areas of youth education as well as providing emergency health care for those citizens in greatest need. Kitunga Ya Mboka works with hospitals, orphanages and support centres providing what they can when and where they can. They also support gifted young people and adults with empowerment projects through targeted, focussed and closely monitored entrepreneurship training.

Bro. Luwezi Kinshasa: is the Secretary General of the African Socialist International. Born in Congo, he currently lives in exile in London where he presides over the building of the African People’s Socialist Party throughout Africa and Europe. SG Luwezi’s regular column in The Burning Spear newspaper analyses current events and development on the continent of Africa from an African Internationalist perspective. He publishes a bilingual version of The Spear in French and English for distribution in Africa and Europe.

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