Patrice Lumumba was born on 2 July 1925 as Isaïe Tasumbu Tawosa to Julienne Wamato Lomendja and her husband, François Tolenga Otetshima, a farmer, in Onalua, in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo.

He made three suggestions for formateur: Lumumba, as the winner of the elections; Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the only figure with a reliable national reputation who was associated with the coalescing opposition; or some to-be-determined third individual who could unite the competing blocs.

The following day he appointed Lumumba to serve as the delegate (informateur) tasked with investigating the possibility of forming a national unity government that included politicians with a wide range of views, with 16 June 1960 as his deadline.

Ganshof considered extending the role of informateur to Cyrille Adoula and Kasa-Vubu, but faced increasing pressure from Belgian and moderate Congolese advisers to end Lumumba's assignment.

After Kasongo opened the session, Lumumba delivered his main speech,[40] promising to maintain national unity, abide by the will of the people, and pursue a neutralist foreign policy.

[46] At the onset of his premiership, Lumumba had two main goals: to ensure that independence would bring a legitimate improvement in the quality of life for the Congolese and to unify the country as a centralised state by eliminating tribalism and regionalism.

[49] The Belgians were opposed to such an idea, as it would create inefficiency in the Congo's bureaucracy and lead to a mass exodus of unemployed civil servants to Belgium, whom they would be unable to absorb into the government there.

[49] In seeking to eliminate tribalism and regionalism in the Congo, Lumumba was deeply inspired by the personality and undertakings of Kwame Nkrumah and by Ghanaian ideas of the leadership necessary in post-colonial Africa.

[51] Baudouin's speech praised developments under colonialism, his reference to the "genius" of his great-granduncle Leopold II of Belgium, glossing over atrocities committed during his reign over the Congo Free State.

Without a stop until evening he was receiving salesmen, petitioners, donors, experts, businessmen, and diplomats, the most variegated crowd that ever walked on the market ... everybody wanted to deal exclusively with Lumumba.

[66][67] On the morning of 5 July 1960, General Émile Janssens, commander of the Force Publique, in response to increasing excitement among the Congolese ranks, summoned all troops on duty at Camp Léopold II.

He Africanised the force by appointing Sergeant Major Victor Lundula as general and commander-in-chief, and chose junior minister and former soldier Joseph Mobutu as colonel and Army chief of staff.

Those who are paid today by the enemies of freedom for the purpose of maintaining sedition movements across the country and thereby disturbing the social peace will be punished with the utmost energy ... On 9 August, Lumumba proclaimed a state of emergency throughout the Congo.

[100] Throughout August, Lumumba increasingly withdrew from his full cabinet and instead consulted with officials and ministers he trusted, such as Maurice Mpolo, Joseph Mbuyi, Kashamura, Gizenga, and Antoine Kiwewa.

[107] On 14 September Mobutu announced over the radio that he was launching a "peaceful revolution" to break the political impasse and therefore neutralising the President, Lumumba's and Iléo's respective governments, and Parliament until 31 December.

Kasa-Vubu, Mobutu, Foreign Minister Justin Marie Bomboko, and Head of Security Services Victor Nendaka Bika personally arrived at the camp and negotiated with the troops.

The following morning, on orders of Katangan Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo, who wanted to make the bodies disappear and prevent a burial site from being created, Belgian Gendarmerie officer Gerard Soete and his team dug up and dismembered the corpses, and dissolved them in sulfuric acid while the bones were ground and scattered.

[146][147] The ongoing Cold War affected both Belgium and the United States' perception of Lumumba, as they feared he was increasingly subject to communist influence due to his appeals for Soviet aid.

However, according to journalist Sean Kelly, who covered the events as a correspondent for the Voice of America, Lumumba did this not because he was a communist, but because he felt that the Soviet Union was the only power which would support his government's effort to defeat Belgian-supported separatists and rid itself of colonial influence.

[149] Lumumba, for his part, denied being a communist, stating that he found colonialism and communism to be equally deplorable, and publicly professed his personal preference for neutrality between the East and West.

In September 1960, Gottlieb brought a vial of the poison to the Congo, and CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin developed plans to place it on Lumumba's toothbrush or in his food.

The documents indicate that the Congolese leaders who overthrew Lumumba and transferred him to the Katangan authorities, including Mobutu Sese Seko and Joseph Kasa-Vubu, received money and weapons directly from the CIA.

[178] In 2000, a newly declassified interview with Robert Johnson, who was the minutekeeper of the U.S. National Security Council at the time in question, revealed that U.S. President Eisenhower had said "something [to CIA chief Allen Dulles] to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated".

[183] In April 2013, in a letter to the London Review of Books, British parliamentarian David Lea reported having discussed Lumumba's death with MI6 officer Daphne Park shortly before she died in March 2010.

[200] According to Patricia Goff, Lumumba was the first Congolese to articulate a narrative of the Congo that contradicted traditional Belgian views of colonisation, and he highlighted the suffering of the indigenous population under European rule.

[207] Most Africanists of the 20th century, such as Jean-Claude Willame, viewed Lumumba as an intransigent, unrealistic idealist without any tangible programme who distanced himself from his contemporaries and alienated the Western world with radical anti-colonial rhetoric.

Everything he wrote, said and did was the product of someone who knew his vocation to be that of a liberator, and he represents for the Congo what Castro does for Cuba, Nasser for Egypt, Nkrumah for Ghana, Mao Tse-tung for China, and Lenin for Russia.

"[224] Lumumba's image was unpopular in southern Kasai for years after his death, as many Baluba remained aware of the military campaign he ordered in August 1960 that resulted in violent atrocities against their people.

Tetela, Songye, and Luba-Katanga peoples created folks songs of mourning for him, but these were groups which had been involved in political alliances with him and, at the time, Lumumba was unpopular in large segments of the Congolese populace, particularly in the capital, Bas-Congo, Katanga, and South Kasai.

[256] Congolese authors Sony Lab'ou Tansi's and Sylvain Bemba's fictional Parentheses of Blood and Léopolis, respectively, both feature characters with strong similarities to Lumumba.