Patrice Emry Lumumba

Patrice Emry Lumumba, a martyr for a worthy cause, of a foolish man with unrealistic hopes and ambitions? Due to his hard work, unrelenting persistence, and aspirations, his homeland, the Congo, gained their independence from the colonizing country of Belgium July 1st, 1960. Not long after though, there was a price over his head, and he only got to see the payoff of his work for a little less than six months. What killed Patrice Lumumba is a combination of many players including the actions he himself took, other political powers like Sese Seko Mobutu, Moise Kapensa Tshombe, and Joseph Kasavubu, and the other influential nations including the colonizing country of Belgium.

In the fight for independence for his country, Patrice Lumumba had been in all of the right places at all of the right times. He knew exactly what he wanted and how he would go about getting that, but he didn’t do that without stepping on a few people’s toes along the way. When he was named the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congolese people, he gave a speech on independence day that was awe-inspiring to the citizens of the country, but dangerous for him because the political leaders were shocked. He stated:

"This was our fate for eighty years of a colonial regime; our wounds are too fresh and too painful still for us to drive them from our memory. We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, or to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us.

We have known ironies, insults, blows that we endured morning, noon, and evening, because we are Negroes. Who will forget that to a black one said "tu", certainly not as to a friend, but because the more honorable "vous" was reserved for whites alone?"

He voiced for the people who had for so long been held down, spit on, hit, and beaten, but little did he know that the voice he was speaking with would come to a halt in the near future. He was too powerful for what an African leader should have been at the time, he had too many supporters behind him, he was threatening. He can be blamed partially for his own death because he didn’t bide his time with the completely radical views he had. He was never afraid to speak his mind about the injustices that his people had faced at the hand of the Belgian government. The freedom had only just been given to the people, and the Belgian political officials were not yet ready to hear all of this talk of black power.

Another major player in the aid of Lumumba’s death were the other political factions that surrounded him. Joseph Kasavubu, the Congo’s President, was supposed to be one of Lumumba’s closest allies, most trusted friends, but it turns out that the cause isn’t really what drove Kasavubu, it was doing what others thought was right, what would secure his livelihood. When the situation in the Congo got rough and UN support wasn’t helping contain the situation, Kasavubu made a pact with Sese Seko Mobutu that he could have control of the army. With these two working together, Lumumba’s authority was undermined, and eventually lead to the nullification of his prime ministerial powers. Kasavubu did not have much say in the going ons of the Congo while Lumumba was calling all the shots, so in order for him to be the