Chokwe Lumumba

Chokwe Lumumba (; August 2, 1947 – February 25, 2014) was an American attorney, activist, and politician, who was affiliated with the black separatist organization Republic of New Afrika and served as its second vice president. He served as a human rights lawyer in Michigan and Mississippi. In 2013, after serving on the City Council, he was elected as Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, as Edwin Finley Taliaferro, and was raised there. He changed his name in 1969 after joining the Republic of New Afrika. Early life and education He was born in Detroit, Michigan, as Edwin Finley Taliaferro, the second of eight children of Lucien Taliaferro, from Kansas, and Priscilla, from Alabama. Lumumba stated at the 2011 Netroots Nation Annual Conference that his great-grandmother was a Cherokee woman and his great-grandfather was a Black American man who descended from enslaved Nigerians. His parents had each moved to Detroit in the Great Migration of the early 20th century. Raised Catholic, Lumumba attended local Catholic schools. He graduated from St. Theresa High School in Detroit, where he served as president of the student council and captain of the football team. As a young man he witnessed police brutality. His mother would stand with her children on corners collecting money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and she impressed on her son the important role of political activism and civil rights.