Lumumbism

Patrice Lumumba
1st Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In office 24 June 1960 – 5 September 1960
President	Joseph Kasa-Vubu
Deputy	Antoine Gizenga
Preceded by	position established
Succeeded by	Joseph Iléo
Personal details
Born	Élias Okit'Asombo 2 July 1925 Katakokombe, Belgian Congo (Now Congo-Kinshasa)
Died	17 January 1961 (aged 35) Near Élisabethville, Katanga (Now Lubumbashi, Congo-Kinshasa)
Political party	Mouvement National Congolais

Patrice Émery Lumumba (alternatively styled Patrice Hemery Lumumba) (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first democratically elected prime minister of Congo. Lumumba played an important role for his country to be granted independence from Belgium, as a founder and leader of the mainstream Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party,

Shortly after Congolese independence in 1960, a mutiny broke out in the army, marking the beginning of the Congo Crisis. Lumumba appealed to the United States and the United Nations for assistance to suppress the Belgian-supported Katangan secessionists. Both parties refused, so Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for support. This led to growing differences with President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and chief-of-staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, as well as the foreign opposition of the United States and Belgium. Lumumba was subsequently imprisoned by state authorities under Mobutu and executed by a firing squad under the command of Katangan authorities. Following his death, he was widely seen as a martyr for the wider Pan-African movement.

Patrice Lumumba was born on 2 July 1925 to a farmer, François Tolenga Otetshima, and his wife, Julienne Wamato Lomendja, in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo. He was a member of the Tetela ethnic group and was born with the name Élias Okit'Asombo. His original surname means "heir of the cursed" and is derived from the Tetela words okitá/okitɔ́ ('heir, successor') and asombó ('cursed or bewitched people who will die quickly'). He had three brothers (Ian Clark, Émile Kalema, and Louis Onema Pene Lumumba) and one half-brother (Tolenga Jean). Raised in a Catholic family, he was educated at a Protestant primary school, a Catholic missionary school, and finally the government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction. Lumumba spoke Tetela, French, Lingala, Swahili, and Tshiluba.

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