In memory of Martin Luther King, Junior and Patrice Lumumba

It seemed more than fitting to learn on this twenty-fifth Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend that Sunday, January 16, 2011, was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically-elected Prime Minister.  

Reverend King and President Lumumba represented the hopes and dreams of their people.  Both men were dynamic speakers who excelled at “speaking truth to power.” And despite the unexpected election of Barack Obama to the American presidency in 2008, the social aspirations of far too many African Americans and the Congolese people as a whole have been retarded as a result of their untimely deaths.  Patrice Lumumba was thirty-five when his life was cut short, King thirty-nine.

Patrice Lumumba and Martin Luther King, Jr. share one other historical tie: Both King and Lumumba were targeted for assassination by the federal government of The United States of America.