Patrice Emery Lumumba

Born July 2, 1925, in Onalua, Kasai Province; died January 1961 in Katanga (now Shaba). Leader of the liberation movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (now the Republic of Zaire). The son of a peasant. Graduating from missionary schools, Lumumba worked as a clerk and a postal official and then as an employee in a Belgian company. At the same time he was engaged in literary and journalistic activities: he founded the newspaper Uhuru (Freedom) and was manager of the weekly Indépendance. In 1958 he founded the Congolese National Movement, which came out for the unconditional granting of independence to the Belgian Congo, and was elected its chairman. He was persecuted by the authorities. In January and February 1960 he attended the Round Table Conference in Brussels, which adopted the decision to grant independence to the Belgian Congo. In June 1960, Lumumba became premier of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He came out against internal separatism and the armed aggression of Belgian colonizers in July 1960; in September 1960 he was ousted from power, arrested, and transferred to Katanga, where he was murdered. In 1966 he was officially proclaimed a national hero. In 1961 the People’s Friendship University in Moscow was renamed the Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University.