Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Lumumba Assassination Changed Black American Politics
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
19 Jan 2021
🖨️ Print Article

Margaret Kimberley · Lumumba Assassination Changed Black American Politics

A panel of academics and activists marked the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first elected prime minister, by agents of the US and Belgium. Texas A&M professor Ira Dworkin, author of “Congo Love Song: African American Culture and the Crisis of the Colonial State,” pointed out that it was Black women, led by singer Abbey Lincoln, who petitioned for Lumumba’s release from arrest, and later organized against US policy in Congo. These protests “did create a shift” in Black American politics towards confrontation with US policies in Africa and the world, Dworkin told the online seminar.

Lumumba

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: When to fight, when to care, Floyd Dunn, 1993
    03 Dec 2025
    “The [AIDS] epidemic continued to gobble up the first phase of us…”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki Stands with Sudan
    03 Dec 2025
    Eritrean President Isais Afwerki arrived in Port Sudan on November 29 to stand with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan for the unity of Sudan.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Reclaiming our time back from February 30th Fighters
    03 Dec 2025
    "Reclaiming our time back from February 30th Fighters" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Jon Jeter
    Everything Must Change: Roles Reversed as Western Imperialist’s Gory, Glory Days Come to an End
    03 Dec 2025
    Europe celebrated defeating fascism in 1945 but immediately resumed its colonial control of the Global South. Now, eighty years later, the West is bankrupt financially and morally and is discovering…
  • Accra
    Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    5th Pan-African Congress Commemoration 2025
    03 Dec 2025
    Delegates gathered in Accra, Ghana to commemorate the 1945 Pan-African Conference, affirm their commitment to fighting neo-colonialism, and to demand reparations for African people throughout the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us