Patrice Lumumba: Speech at the Proclamation of Congolese Independence

( 1960 ) Commentary by Thomas Turner, Ph.D.

“I ask all my friends, all of you who have fought unceasingly at our side, to make this thirtieth of June, 1960, an illustrious date that will be indelibly engraved upon your hearts, a date whose meaning you will teach your children with pride, so that they in turn will tell their children and their children's children the glorious story of our struggle for independence.” - Paragraph 3
“For though this independence of the Congo is today being proclaimed in a spirit of accord with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we are dealing as one equal with another, no Congolese worthy of the name can ever forget that we fought to win it.… It was a noble and just struggle, an indispensable struggle if we were to put an end to the humiliating slavery that had been forced upon us.” - Paragraph 4
“We have been the victims of ironic taunts, of insults, of blows that we were forced to endure morning, noon, and night because we were blacks. Who can forget that a black was addressed in the familiar form, not because he was a friend, certainly, but because the polite form of address was to be used only for whites?” - Paragraph 6
“Who can forget, finally, the burst of rifle fire in which so many of our brothers perished, the cells into which the authorities threw those who no longer were willing to submit to a rule where justice meant oppression and exploitation?” - Paragraph 11

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