Kimbanguism

a religious and anticolonial movement in tropical Africa from the 1920’s to the 1950’s. It was named after Simon Kimbangu (1889–1951), who in 1921 founded a Christian sect in the Belgian Congo (present-day Republic of Zaire).

Kimbanguism combined faith in a black Messiah—whose coming would usher in a reign of freedom and justice under which Africans would become masters of their land—with a refusal to pay taxes and duties and to work for the colonialists. After Kimbangu’s arrest in the fall of 1921 (he died in prison in 1951), similar movements arose in the Congo and neighboring countries, such as those led by André Matsoua in the 1930’s and 1940’s and by Simon Mpadi (known as the blacks’ mission) in the 1930’s and the Kitawala sect of the 1940’s and 1950’s. The anticolonial orientation of Kimbanguism allied it with the national liberation movement. Kimbanguism has survived in Zaire as a religious sect.