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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi There, Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: where we sift through the artifacts of history seven days

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Speaker 1: a week. Today is July second, nineteen. The day was

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Speaker 1: July second, nineteen. Patrice and Marie La Mumba was born

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Speaker 1: in on A, lu Kasai province in the Belgian Congo.

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Speaker 1: La Mumba went on to become the first Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was assassinated

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one, but he is remembered as a

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Speaker 1: Pan Africanist leader and freedom fighter. Lamombo was one of

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Speaker 1: four sons born to poor farmers when Congo was under

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Speaker 1: Belgian rule. He was a member of the Tetela ethnic group.

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Speaker 1: As a child, he began going to mission nary schools,

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Speaker 1: which spent little time instructing black children in book study,

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Speaker 1: in more time preparing them for manual labor. Regardless, teachers

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Speaker 1: gave him books to read, and after he finished primary

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Speaker 1: school he went on to secondary school. Though he had

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Speaker 1: always been eager in his quest for knowledge. He left

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Speaker 1: secondary school at age eighteen. At this time, the Belgian

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Speaker 1: Congo was at war and La Mumba was Stuck between

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Speaker 1: Catholic and Protestant missionaries, who both aligned with Belgian colonial authorities,

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Speaker 1: he decided to find employment elsewhere, relocating to places like Kalima,

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Speaker 1: Ubund and Kisangani, then called Stanleyville. La Mumba became active

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Speaker 1: in groups of Abu Luay Africans who have been educated

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Speaker 1: in westernized mission schools, who gathered to debate issues and

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Speaker 1: exchange knowledge. Mumba learned to fluently speak several languages, including Swahili, French,

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Speaker 1: and Lingala. He started to write essays and poems, many

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Speaker 1: of which were anti colonialists, for Congolese journals. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty seven, he went to postal school and got a

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Speaker 1: job as a postal worker in Kinshasa, then called Leopoldville.

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Speaker 1: He soon became an accountant in the post office in Kisangani,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen fifty one he married fifteen year old

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Speaker 1: Pauline Obangu l Mumba helped organize a postal workers union,

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Speaker 1: founded a group of African intellectuals and liberal Europeans whose

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Speaker 1: goal was to improve race relations, continued writing for the

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Speaker 1: Congolese press, and joined a local branch of a Belgian

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Speaker 1: liberal party. In nineteen fifty six, he was a part

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Speaker 1: of a delegation of Congolese people visiting Belgium to discuss

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Speaker 1: political reform, but when he returns to Congo, he was

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Speaker 1: arrested for embezzlement from the post office. Though he said

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Speaker 1: he was innocent and had borrowed the money, he ended

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Speaker 1: up serving about a year in prison. Once he was released,

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Speaker 1: he became the sales director of a brewery in Conshassa

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Speaker 1: and helped found the Congolese National Movement for m n

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Speaker 1: C in nineteen fifty eight. The m n C was

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Speaker 1: a political group that opposed Belgian control, called for Congo's

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Speaker 1: resources to benefit the Congolese first, and demanded independence. Ghana

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Speaker 1: had recently gained its independence from Britain, and the December

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Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty eight, La Mumba attended the first All

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Speaker 1: African People's Conference in across Ghana, organized by Kuama and Kruma.

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Speaker 1: La Mumba became more radical as he recognized the oppression

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Speaker 1: of Belgian colonial rule, and his militant nationalism, drive for

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Speaker 1: progress and leadership made him a target for authorities. The

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Speaker 1: m n C split into two organizations in nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: as La Mumba took a radical stance against colonial rule

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Speaker 1: with La Mumba side, appropriately known as m n C

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Speaker 1: La Mumba. After riots broke out and people were killed

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Speaker 1: in Kisangani after he gave a speech at an MNC conference,

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Speaker 1: Lamombo was arrested on the charge of inciting anti colonial riots,

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Speaker 1: but he was soon released from prison to attend a

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Speaker 1: round table conference in Brussels convened to discuss the future

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Speaker 1: of the Congo. Belgium granted the Congo independence slated for

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Speaker 1: June thirtieth, nineteen sixty, and the national elections in May.

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Speaker 1: The m nc came out ahead, winning thirty three seats

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Speaker 1: out of one thirty seven. Lamombo became the Belgian Congo's

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Speaker 1: first prime minister, with rival Joseph Kasavubu as the president.

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Speaker 1: On June thirtieth independence day, La Mumba surprised people with

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Speaker 1: a speech that denounced Belgian domination, emphasized the suffering of

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Speaker 1: Congolese people under colonial rule, and called for Congolese unification.

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Speaker 1: This was just after the Belgian king had given a

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Speaker 1: speech supporting colonialism and telling Congo to step into the

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Speaker 1: sure cautiously. After independence, the Congo fell into disorder. When

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Speaker 1: La Mumba called in help from the Soviet Union, Belgians

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Speaker 1: and Americans accused him of being communist. Army commander Joseph

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Speaker 1: Mobutu arrested La Mumba and Kasavubu and took power. A

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Speaker 1: c I. A scientist was sent to poison him, but

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Speaker 1: that never happened. Though La Mumba managed to escape, he

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Speaker 1: was recaptured and sent to Katanga, a province that had

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Speaker 1: succeeded from Congo in the wake of independence and was

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Speaker 1: under Belgian control. La Mumba was tortured and then assassinated

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Speaker 1: in Katanga on January seventeenth, nineteen sixty one. Many people

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Speaker 1: today view him as a martyr for anti imperialism and

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Speaker 1: Pan Africanism. I'm Eve Jeffco and hopefully you know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. We

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