Patrice Emery Lumumba (1925-1961) was the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo. His fame rests on the manner of his death and on the symbolic character of his short public life.

Patrice Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925, at Onalua near the town of Katako-Kombe in the Sankuru district of northeastern Kasai. His tribe, the Batetela, is a peripheral but dynamic branch of the Mongo-Nkutshu family of central Congo. He attended Protestant and then Catholic missionary schools and, after completing his secondary education, found a job as a postal clerk in the provincial capital of Statesville (now Kisangani) in 1954.

Political Leader

Lumumba rapidly emerged as a leader of the évolué community and organized a postal workers' union. He also became a protégé of local sympathizers of the Belgian Liberal party at a time when the policy of the Liberal minister of...