Chokwe Lumumba—human rights attorney, civil rights activist and revolutionary Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi—unexpectedly died Tuesday of heart failure at the age of 66.
Before entering politics, Lumumba rose to prominence as a civil rights activist and human rights attorney—defending notable clients including Black Panther Assata Shakur. Lumumba served as a leading figure in the Republic of New Afrika, and co-founded the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
Of his upbringing and the source of his activism, The Nation’s John Nichols writes:
In June 2013, Lumumba was elected to be the third black mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. His vision for Jackson was based in the principle of “solidarity economics,” in order to rise up what he said was a population that “suffered some of the worst kinds of abuses in history.”
“We have to make sure that economically we’re free, and part of that is the whole idea of economic democracy,” Lumumba told San Francisco’s WBAI-AfroBeat Radio in an interview last June. “We have to deal with more cooperative thinking and more involvement of people in the control of businesses, as opposed to just the big money changers, or the big CEOs and the big multinational corporations, the big capitalist corporations which generally control here in Mississippi.”
At the time, Ann Garrison at WBAI said Lumumba “stands to be a historic mayor.”
“Some of the most significant things happen in history when you get the right people in the right place at the right time, and I think that’s where we are,” Lumumba told Laura Flanders in an interview just two weeks before his death. Lumumba was preparing to launch his solidarity economics plan at the Jackson Rising Conference in May.
Following news of his death, Twitter was filled with messages of grief and appreciation.
In June 2013, days after being elected Mayor of Jackson, Lumumba took part in a discussion on Democracy Now! describing his vision for the city.
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