January 17, 1961: Patrice Émery Lumumba is executed by firing squad. He was only 35 years old. This was the same day that outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his televised Farewell Address, for which I have a separate entry.
Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925, with the name Élias Okit'Asombo, in Katako-Kombe, in what was then the Belgian Congo. In 1885, King Leopold II of Belgium created the Congo Free State, exploiting the mineral wealth of the land, killing millions of natives, and torturing millions of others.
In 1908, under pressure from the other European powers, Leopold took official control, and "the Belgian Congo" was born. He died the next year, but the situation was hardly improved his nephew and successor, King Albert I, based as it was on the "colonial trinity": Serving the interests of the Belgian state, "Christian" missionaries, and the corporations taking the resources out of a vast land of 9 million people for a small but dominating nation of 7 million.
The young man who would later take the name Patrice Lumumba worked as a beer salesman and a postal clerk, but loved French writers, particularly those who leaned toward the Enlightenment, especially Molière, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Victor Hugo. They inspired him to write poetry, much of it with anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist themes. He married Pauline Opangu, and had 4 children. In 1956, he studied in Belgium, and again worked as a postal clerk. But he was convicted of embezzling from the post office, and sentenced to a year in prison.
Released in 1957, he founded and led the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement National Congolais, or MNC) in 1958. Like so many other revolutionary leaders, he became popular because of his charismatic public speaking. He was imprisoned again in October 1959 for inciting a riot (he hadn't), but was released early in an effort to calm things down.
On May 25, 1960, the MNC won the election for a provisional government, and independence was declared by the Republic of the Congo on June 30, 1960, with Lumumba as Prime Minister. King Baudouin of Belgium was on hand in the capital of Kinshasa, to give his assent to what had been a mostly peaceful process.
But Lumumba didn't have control of the new country's army, which was aided by the Belgian government, and what became known as the Congo Crisis broke out. Colonel Joseph Mobutu launched a coup, and he was arrested on December 1. By January 13, 1961, even the soldiers at the prison where he was held were divided, and the decision was made to execute him and the others with him. It was done on the night of January 17.
His death was mere rumor for a while, and some tried to convince the country that it was angry villagers who killed him during an escape attempt. The official announcement wasn't made until February 13, nearly a month later. In London, there was a march from Trafalgar Square to the Belgian embassy, and the protesters clashed with the police. In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the Belgian embassy was ransacked. In New York, there was a violent demonstration outside the United Nations Building.
In 2001, 40 years after the execution, a report was issued stating that CIA Director Allen Dulles, believing that Lumumba was a Communist -- something he had publicly denied -- wanted him eliminated, but that the agent in charge of killing him was unable to pull off his early attempts. For this reason, the report alleged, the Mobutu plot feared that incoming Administration of John F. Kennedy might call off efforts to get rid of Lumumba, and so they had to act quickly. The report also alleged that JFK wanted Lumumba freed, but not returned to power.
Lumumba has been celebrated in literature and music. Malcolm X -- also born in 1925, and also murdered before turning 40 -- called him "the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent." Muhammad Ali cited the murders of both Patrice Lumumba and, in Mississippi in 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till as having a profound effect on his mindset.
Mobutu later gave himself the more African-sounding name to Mobutu Sese Seko, and publicized the country he renamed Zaire in 1971 as being the richest in Africa, its people benefiting from the great natural resources that had once been plundered by Belgium. He even convinced Ali and then-Heavyweight Champion George Foreman to have their fight for the title there in 1974, which Ali won.
But as time went by, it became clear to the outside world that the people as a whole were not benefiting: Only Mobutu and his supporters were. He was governing in the style of an American big-city "political boss," except that, if you didn't support him, instead of refusing to plow the snow off your streets, fixing your potholes and pick up your garbage before doing those things for the people who did vote for him, he engaged in arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings. He only fell in 1997 because his health began to fail. He fled the country, and died soon thereafter.
Today, "the Democratic Republic of the Congo" is recovering from a long post-Mobutu civil war. The 108 million people living there had a free election in 2018. At 17 million people, the capital of Kinshasa is the largest French-speaking city in the world.
Pauline Opango, Lumumba's wife, never remarried, claiming she was unable to "find someone else of the same quality." She lived until 2014. They had 4 children, who are still fighting to have whatever physical remains of him still intact transferred back to them for a proper burial. As of January 17, 2022, all that they have been granted are two teeth that had been kept as macabre trophies.
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January 17, 1961 was a Tuesday. There were no scores on the day: Baseball and football were out of season, and no games were scheduled for the NBA or the NHL.
I could cite one notable college basketball game played on the day: The University of Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh-based Duquesne University, 64-53, at the Armory Fieldhouse in Cincinnati. UC went on to win the National Championship that season, defeating defending Champion Ohio State.
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