After a frenzied set of meetings in Washington, he made a personal request. Like Sukarno four years earlier, he wanted to have an exchange with a sex worker, the story goes. This inspired “revulsion,” adding to the distaste US officials already felt for him. In the middle of the twentieth century, black men in the US were brutally tortured and murdered for alleged sexual transgressions involving white women, including for simply whistling. Washington didn’t like the way Lumumba talked politics, either. Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon said “he was gripped by this fervor that I can
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