Miners in Elisabethville conducted a strike in December 1941 to protest the increasingly severe forced-labor regime that the Belgians imposed on the population.
The Belgians established the University of Elisabethville in 1954-1955 (now the University of Lubumbashi. In municipal elections in December 1957, the people of Elisabethville gave a vast majority to the Nationalist Alliance de Bakongo, which demanded immediate independence from the Belgians.
Elisabethville served as the capital and center of the secessionist independent state of Katanga during the bloody 1960-1963 Congolese civil war. Moise Tshombe proclaimed Katangan independence in July 1960. Congolese leaders arrested him and charged him with treason in April 1961; however, he agreed to dismiss his foreign advisers and military forces in exchange for his release. Tshombe returned to Elisabethville but repudiated these assurances and began to fight anew. United Nations troops opposed Katangan forces and took control of the city in December 1961 under a strong mandate.
Totalitarian kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko ultimately assumed power. In his faux "African authenticity" campaign circa 1966, he replaced Elisabethville with the Africanized name "Lubumbashi." In an attempt to paper over its association with secession, he renamed Katanga "Shaba" in 1972.
Congo entered another genocidal civil war in the 1990s. The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo rebels captured Lubumbashi in April 1997. Rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila spoke from Lubumbashi to declare himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 17, 1997 after Mobutu Sese Seko fled Kinshasa.
Lubumbashi lies at the centre of railway lines to Ilebo, Kindu and Kolwezi. Lubumbashi hosts the modern Luano international airport and a daily newspaper. The city consequently serves as a distribution center for such minerals as copper, cobalt, zinc, tin, and coal.
Attractions in the city include a Botanical garden, a Zoo, a Brewery, and the regional archaeological and ethnological National Museum of Lubumbashi. The city also hosts the major University of Lubumbashi, which maintains a library.