Local officials confirm the tragic news that longtime black nationalist organizer and attorney Chokwe Lumumba has died. Watch our interview with Lumumba just after he was elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi last June, when he said, “we’re about to make some advances and some strides in the development of human rights and the protection of human rights that I think have not been seen in other parts of the country.”

Over the past four decades, Lumumba was been deeply involved in numerous political and legal campaigns. As an attorney, his clients included former Black Panther Assata Shakur and the late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. As a political organizer, Lumumba served for years as vice president of the Republic of New Afrika, an organization which advocated for “an independent predominantly black government” in the southeastern United States and reparations for slavery. He also helped found the National Black Human Rights Coalition and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.