Celebrating The Lives of Our Martyrs In Maryland, Liberia

January 17, 2016, marks the 55th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, December 6, 2015, marked the 55^th anniversary of the death of Frantz Omar Fanon and January 20, 2016, marks the 43^rd anniversary of the death of Amilca Cabral.

On Saturday, January 16, 2016, we host a symposium at the Intellectual Forum on Maryland Avenue, adjacent the Tea Shop opposite the TU Bus Stop, in front of the old parking station, at 3pm.

Panelists include, Dr. Prof. Miatta Brown-Davies of The Tubman University (TU), Groba Williams (TU) and Dr. Prof. Nathaniel Gbessagee (TU).

Patrice Émery Lumumba was born on 2 July 1925. He was the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He played an important role in campaigning for independence from Belgium as founder and leader of the mainstream Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party.His pan-Africanism and vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Within twelve weeks of Congolese independence in 1960, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis. This led to growing differences with President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and chief-of-staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu as well as foreign opposition. Lumumba was subsequently imprisoned by state authorities under Mobutu. On January 17, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, Lumumba was shot and killed. The United Nations, which he had asked to come to the Congo, did not intervene to save him.

Come listen to the true story of the rise to power and brutal assassination of the formerly vilified and later redeemed leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Using newly discovered historical evidence, Haitian-born and later Congo-raised writer and director Raoul Peck renders an emotional and tautly woven account of the mail clerk and beer salesman with a flair for oratory and an uncompromising belief in the capacity of his homeland to build a prosperous nation independent of its former Belgium overlords. Lumumba emerges here as the heroic sacrificial lamb dubiously portrayed by the international media and led to slaughter by commercial and political interests in Belgium, the United States, the international community, and Lumumba's own administration; a true story of political intrigue and murder where political entities, captains of commerce, and the military dovetail in their quest for economic and political hegemony.

December 6, 2015, marked the 55^th anniversary of the death of Dr. Comrade Revolutionary Frantz Omar Fanonborn on July 20, 1925 and died December 6, 1961. Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, which was then a French colony and is now a French département. His father was a descendant of enslaved Africans; his mother was said to be an "illegitimate" child of African, Indian and European descent, whose white ancestors came from Strasbourg in Alsace. He was a psychoanalyst and social philosopher known for his theory that some neuroses are socially generated and for his writings on behalf of the national liberation of colonial peoples. His critiques influenced subsequent generations of thinkers and activists.

January 20, 2016, marks the 43^rd anniversary of the death of Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral. He was born 12 September 1924 and died 20 January 1973. He was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and political leader. He was also one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence. Though not a Marxist, he was deeply influenced by Marxism, and became an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national independence movements world-wide.