By Andy Douglas
The 2024 film “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” (a nominee for Best Documentary Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards) is a smart, insightful look at a riveting if little-remembered episode in 20th century history: the assassination of Congolese leader and Pan-Africanist Patrice Lumumba. The film depicts the period of the late 1950’s-early 1960’s, when country after country gained independence, the United Nations was filling with new member nations, and non-aligned African and Asian countries were joining in a bloc to create a counterweight to the might of the Western powers.
Belgium had finally granted independence to the Congo, after centuries of violent and racist domination. The Congo was one of the richest countries in the world in terms of mineral resources and a provider to the US of much of the uranium it needed for its nuclear weapons. But Belgium was now balking at the nationalization of mines in southern Congo, under the leadership of Congo’s first President, Patrice Lumumba, who was stoking the sense of African unity and promoting the use of African resources for Africans. The Marxist bloc – USSR, China, Cuba – lurked in the background, criticizing continued racism in the US and Europe which resulted in anti-Red fervor in those countries.
Meanwhile, the US State Department begins sending jazz musicians as cold war ambassadors to Africa and other parts of the world to offset Communist power and stir admiration for US culture. The film’s heartbeat emanates from the musicians, as it weaves concert footage and interviews with figures such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Malcom X. Lumumba’s advisor and women’s rights activist Andree Blouin and Congolese writer In Kole Jean Bofani also offer insight on the era.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the film depicts clearly the heartbreaking legacy left by colonialism, and ongoing efforts to preserve the vestiges and advantages of colonial power. As for so many countries, political independence did not lead to economic independence in central Africa. And those leaders who strove to bring economic liberation to their people faced the wrath of the global powers that be, who were willing to stoop to all manner of subterfuge to maintain the status quo.
Hoping to retain control over the mineral riches of what had been Belgian Congo, Belgium’s King Baudouin reached out to US President Eisenhower. Meanwhile, Louis Armstrong was dispatched to win over Africans, but Armstrong became a smokescreen to divert attention from Africa’s first post-colonial coup. Eisenhower was quoted as supporting Lumumba’s assassination, while CIA station chief Larry Devlin recounted the steps his agency took to remove Lumumba from power, working closely with Belgian-hired mercenaries and using US munitions to bomb Congolese villages.
The filmmakers astutely use statements by African-American jazz icons demonstrating their own struggles with a racist American society to bolster the narrative message: the hypocrisy of the US and other Western nations who promoted the virtues of democracy throughout the world while denying it for poorer countries and oppressing their own minorities.
The music is brilliant, the interviews insightful and the filmmaking visionary. The film reaches a climax when singer Abbey Lincoln and poet Maya Angelou lead a group of African-American women to crash the United Nations assembly and condemn the assassination of Lumumba. In one of the most affecting moments of the film, Lincoln’s voice, in an excerpt from “Freedom Suite,” provides piercing, guttural commentary on the barbarism of the so-called civilized countries and their realpolitik.
From a Proutist perspective, the film serves as a reminder of the absolute need for local control of local resources, and the importance of strengthening local leadership and local economies. It also reflects on the shortcomings of the United Nations and the need for true global cooperation. And, of course, it provides an example of the power of culture – soulful music borne out of centuries of struggle – to serve as a beacon of inspiration and hope.