Thinkers Timeline

Simon Kimbangu was a Congolese religious leader and the founder of Kimbanguism, one of the largest African-initiated churches in the world. He was born on 12 September 1887 (some sources say 1889) in the village of Nkamba, in the Lower Congo region. The area was then part of the Congo Free State, later the Belgian Congo. His family were members of the Kongo people. Kimbangu was educated at a British Baptist Missionary Society school. He was baptised in 1915 and worked as a Baptist catechist, teaching others the Bible. He was married to Marie Mwilu, who would later become an important leader in her own right. For several years he worked in Kinshasa (then Léopoldville), doing jobs including palm oil work. He tried to ignore what he described as a divine calling to preach and heal. In April 1921, he returned to Nkamba and began his public ministry. He preached, healed the sick, and was said to raise the dead. Thousands of people came to see him. His ministry lasted only about five months. In September 1921, Belgian colonial authorities arrested him. He was tried in a military court and sentenced to death in October 1921. The Belgian King Albert I commuted this to life imprisonment with 120 lashes. Kimbangu spent the next 30 years in prison in Lubumbashi (then Elisabethville), nearly 2,000 kilometres from his home. He died there on 12 October 1951.

Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese political leader and the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was born in 1925 in Onalua, a village in the Kasai region. He came from the Tetela people. He was educated at mission schools and worked as a postal clerk and then as a beer salesman in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) and Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). During the 1950s, he became active in politics. He wrote articles, gave speeches, and helped found trade unions and cultural groups. In 1958, he helped create the Mouvement National Congolais, a party that wanted independence from Belgium for the whole country, not for one region only. He attended the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, and met leaders like Kwame Nkrumah. Belgium agreed to give Congo independence on 30 June 1960. Lumumba became Prime Minister. He was 35 years old. His independence day speech, delivered in the presence of the Belgian King, shocked the world with its honesty about colonial violence. Within weeks, the new country fell into crisis. Parts of the country tried to break away. Belgian troops returned. Lumumba asked the United Nations and then the Soviet Union for help. Western powers, afraid of losing Congo's minerals, worked against him. He was removed from office, arrested, and handed over to his enemies. He was killed on 17 January 1961, aged 35.