Voices of Liberation: Patrice Lumumba (Paperback)

Patrice Lumumba, the democratically elected prime minister of the Congo, and an icon of liberation for the country and the continent, was assassinated with Belgian assistance and approval in 1961; U.S. documents released in 2011 reveal that the CIA, on a directive from President Eisenhower, also made plans to poison him. This examination traces the events leading up to Lumumba’s assassination while also examining the importance of the role he played as a short but realistic ray of hope for true African democracy in the current context of an African renaissance and amid questions of nation-building and identity. With previously unpublished interviews as well as speeches and writings by Lumumba, this book offers crucial contributions to the on-going struggle for liberation and social justice.