Léopoldville Riots

The Léopoldville Riots were an outbreak of civil disorder in Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) in the Belgian Congo which took place in early 1959 and which were an important moment for the Congolese independence movement. The rioting occurred when members of the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO) political party were not allowed to assemble for a protest and colonial authorities reacted harshly. The exact death toll is not known, but at least 49 people were killed and total casualties may have been as high as 500. The Congo received its independence on 30 June 1960, becoming the Republic of the Congo.

Calls for Congolese independence had been building for several years and a slew of new political parties competed for popular support, including the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu and the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), led by Patrice Lumumba. On 28 December 1958, Lumumba organized a major MNC rally in Kinshasa where he reported on his attendance of the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana earlier that month. Noting the success of the rally, Kasa-Vubu decided to organize his own event one week later, on Sunday January 4, 1959.

Kasa-Vubu was set to address the crowd on African nationalism, but when the group requested permission to hold the meeting at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) Belgian officials warned that if the event became political, ABAKO leaders would be held responsible. Interpreting this as a prohibition of the meeting, ABAKO leadership attempted on 3 January to postpone the event, but on Sunday, 4 January, a large crowd gathered at the YMCA anyway. Kasa-Vubu and other ABAKO officials arrived to send the protesters home. They were unable to calm the crowd, and the violence began following the protesters refusal to disperse.

The crowd began throwing rocks at police and attacking white motorists, before the conflagration spread. The initial group of protesters were soon joined by 20,000 Congolese leaving a nearby soccer stadium. At the time press accounts estimated that 35,000 Africans were involved in the violence, which quickly spread as the rioters attempted to enter the European section of the capital. Rioters allegedly smashed and looted storefronts, burned Catholic missions and beat Catholic priests. Order was restored with the use of African police officers in the employ of the colonial government and with the use of armored cars.

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