They dragged him through the mud, his dignity stripped, his hands bound like a criminal — not a leader. Beaten, bleeding, starving — this proud Congolese prime minister, once the hope of post-colonial Africa, was flown to Katanga like cargo. There, in the shadows of Belgian and CIA-backed operatives, he was mocked and tortured. Then came the night of January 17, 1961. They stood him before a firing squad — not even a trial — and riddled him with bullets, his blood soaking into foreign-controlled soil. But they weren’t done. To erase the evidence, they hacked his corpse into pieces, dissolved it in acid, and burned what remained — a literal erasure of African defiance. Why? Because Patrice Lumumba wanted true independence — to take control of Congo’s vast resources from Western hands. That terrified them. So they silenced him. Not for justice. For profit. For empire.
An Investment in Education 