Today would have been the 83rd birthday of Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba became the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Congo in 1960, but was murdered in 1961. Both Belgium and the USA had been involved in plots against his life.Perhaps his most famous moment came at the Congo's independence ceremony, when he refused to quietly accept the Belgian King's patronising notion that the Congo should be grateful to Belgium. His speech that day was referenced by Malcolm X when he paid tribute to Lumumba in 1964:
"Lumumba [is] the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent. He didn't fear anybody. He had those people so scared they had to kill him. They couldn't buy him, they couldn't frighten him, they couldn't reach him. Why, he told the king of Belgium, Man, you may let us free, you may have given us our independence, but we can never forget these scars. The greatest speech— you should take that speech and tack it up over your door. This is what Lumumba said: You aren't giving us anything. Why, can you take back these scars that you put on our bodies? Can you give us back the limbs that you cut off while you were here?- Malcolm X, June 28, 1964
No, you should never forget what that man did to you. And you bear the scars of the same kind of colonization and oppression not on your body, but in your brain, in your heart, in your soul, right now."
In 2000, Raoul Peck directed an award-winning biopic of Lumumba:
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