Maurice Carney on Patrice Lumumba

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Patrice Lumumba, 1960 (photo: Harry Pot)

This week on CounterSpin: US media elites have gotten comfy with what writer Adam Johnson calls their “wall calendar version” of Martin Luther King, in which he represents the “good” left, unmoved by racial nationalism and Marxist ideology.

With Patrice Lumumba, assassinated by the CIA on January 17, 1961, as newly elected leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the story is different. Look up Lumumba on the anniversary of his murder and you’ll find—nothing, really, except maybe a story about how street vendors in Kinshasa are being pushed off of Lumumba Boulevard to prepare for a visit by the Pope.

Martin Luther King, corporate media would have it, offers a lesson about hopes and dreams and the slow but steady push toward progress. Lumumba’s assassination, judging by attention, has zero lessons for US citizens or the press corps to learn about the past, the present or the future.

That’s how you know you should pay attention.

Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of the group Friends of the Congo, has another story. And we hear about it this week on CounterSpin.

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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of the Signal app.

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