Fulbert Youlou - Early Life

Early Life

Youlou, whose last name means "Grape" in Lari, was born the son of a Lari merchant in Madibou, Moyen-Congo. He was baptized at age nine and three years later, entered a seminary. He attended mission schools in Gabon, Cameroon, and Mbamu, where he met Barthélemy Boganda, the future nationalist leader of Oubangui-Chari and the first president of the Central African Republic. He taught in mission schools in French Moyen-Congo and was ordained as a Catholic priest in either 1946 or 1949. In defiance of orders from his superiors, he ran unsuccessfully in the 1956 elections for the French National Assembly and was then defrocked by the church. Ignoring the church's decision, he continued to wear his ecclesiastical robes. Due to his defrocking, he was acclaimed by his fellow countrymen as being a victim of discrimination, which helped launch his political career. Soon after, he took control of Amicale, an anti-French, quasi-religious Lari self-help organization founded by the now-deceased André Matsoua.

He lost the 2 January 1956 election for the Moyen-Congo (African) seat in the French Legislative Assembly by a close margin; he finished third with 27.6% of the vote, behind 31% for Felix Tchicaya and 29.1% for Jacques Opangault. However, the loss only skyrocketed his political profile amongst the Congolese people. With his newfound support, on 29 May he founded the Union Démocratique pour la Défense d'Intérêts Africains (UDDIA; English: Democratic Union for the Defense of African Interests), a political party supporting close relations with France, to compete with Tchicaya's Parti Progressiste Congolais (PPC; English: Congolese Progressive Party) and Opangault's Mouvement Socialiste Africain (MSA; English: African Socialist Movement) parties. In November 1956, Youlou filed papers declaring his candidacy for the election of the mayor of Brazzaville. However, these papers were in fact supposed to be filed in Pointe-Noire. French colonial officials, aware of Barthélemy Boganda's similar dramatic rise to power in Ubangui-Shari, did not want to take the risk of letting Youlou's request lapse, which could have caused unrest amongst the public, so they informed him of his error. They believed that they could utilize Youlou's influence among the Lari people to their benefit. Youlou won the vote of the majority of Brazzaville's Bakongo population to become the first black elected mayor in French Equatorial Africa. His surprise victory drastically altered the political landscape in Congo.