The genocide of the Congo is one of the bloodiest in history. King Leopold II saw Congo’s beautiful natural resources and people as profit.
Leopold enslaved the Congolese people, exhausted their resources, and taxed them for their own enslavement.
When American historian George Washington Williams visited Congo, he was sickened by the violence he saw. The media only ever reported good news about Congo.
But Williams knew he was witnessing genocide.
Williams wrote a letter publicly calling out Leopold’s violent tyranny. Gathering images and interviews from the Congolese people, Williams submitted a report to the Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Williams was one of the first to call out genocide on a global scale. He wouldn’t be the last.
In 1951, William Patterson and Paul Robeson petitioned for America to be held responsible for long-term genocide against Black people. They were denied and critiqued for confusing “genocide with discrimination.
At what point does long-term genocide of a people become so normalized it’s accepted by the world as discrimination?
Now is the time we stand in solidarity with Congo. With Palestine. With Sudan. With other Black Americans we don’t know but are tied to nonetheless. Let’s turn our witnessing of genocide into action.