ChokweLumumba

Netroots Nation: Speaker/Trainer Profile

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Mayor Chokwe Lumumba

The Honorable Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Esq. is the son of two life-long community activists—the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Nubia Lumumba. Throughout his life and career, he has maintained a consistent presence in community projects and displayed a genuine commitment to justice. Attorney Lumumba began his community work early on—serving as co-director of the Malcolm X Grassroots Day Camp and acting as an assistant coach for the Jackson Panthers Basketball Organization. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005 from Tuskegee University where he served as president of both the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society and the Tuskegee Political Science Association. As an undergraduate, Attorney Lumumba also represented the institution on a national level as a member of the Tuskegee Bio-Ethics Debate Team and was honored as the 2005 Gwendolyn M. Patton Student Scholar Activist. Attorney Lumumba earned his juris doctorate and a certificate in sports & entertainment law from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas in 2008. After law school, he immediately returned to Jackson, Mississippi and began his work as a junior associate at Lumumba, Freelon, & Associates. Within a year, he was promoted to managing attorney and took on responsibilities pertaining to personnel and daily operations in addition to his challenging case load. He also litigated criminal and civil cases and represented various sports and entertainment clients for the firm. His dedication to justice and commitment to community is further demonstrated by the numerous pro bono cases he undertook for clientele who struggled to afford legal services yet deserved justice and adequate representation all the same. He is a member of the Mississippi Bar Association as well as the Magnolia Bar Association. In 2013, he launched his own firm—Lumumba & Associates—a firm “Dedicated to Community. Invested in Justice.” Attorney Lumumba’s deep-seated commitment to his community expands beyond his career. As a founding member of the Mississippi Human Rights Collective, he co-organized the “Stand Up to Take It Down” rally at the State capitol to support the removal of the confederate insignia from the Mississippi State flag. He currently serves as the media representative of the Coalition for Economic Justice and is an active member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. His talent for organizing has been a vital component to previous city elections. Over the past several years, he has served as the media chairperson for both the Jackson Ward 2 People’s Assembly and the late Mayor Lumumba’s Ward 2 City Councilman campaign. Attorney Lumumba also acted as a campaign coordinator for his father’s successful bid for Mayor in 2013 and was instrumental in co-crafting The People’s Platform. Evincing his commitment to the progress and development of Jackson, Attorney Lumumba extended his legal services to protect the election of the first black sheriff in Hinds County and, at the request of the late Mayor Lumumba, served on a board organized to respond to the challenges of the Farish Street Development project. In 2017, Attorney Lumumba defeated nine other viable candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor with a total of 55% of the vote. He went on to win the city’s general election by 93% on June 6, 2017. As Mayor, he has been recognized as one of Mississippi’s Top 50 Most Influential Leaders and was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans of 2017 by the Root. Attorney Lumumba is a faithful member of Free Christian Ministries and serves on the church’s leadership team. His lifelong objective is to continue to struggle on behalf of oppressed peoples worldwide, so that they may eventually obtain the self-determined lives they so justly deserve. He firmly supports the concepts of community and family and the belief of the community as a family and pledges to do all that he can to make that concept live.