Blackwell Reference Online

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In the 1930s, Aimé Cesaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor , Léon Damas, Gilbert Gratient, Léonard Sainville, and Paulette and Jane Nardal – seven young intellectuals from various parts of the Francophone world – met as students at the Sorbonne in Paris. They founded a student journal, L'Etudiant noir , that served as a forum for writings on anti-colonialism and a new form of identity politics based on a common “African” or “black” experience. The articles in L'Etudiant noir served as a foundation for the early conceptualization of Négritude. Though Cesaire, Senghor, and Damas are typically credited as “les trois pères” (“the three fathers”) of Négritude, it is important to note that the writings of all of the aforementioned scholars helped to shape one of the largest anti-colonial literary and artistic movements of the twentieth century. Négritude is based on the notion that locating a sense of solidarity in a common black diasporic identity is necessary in order to overcome the social and political rhetoric of French colonial racism and domination. More specifically, the Négritude movement is characterized by Marxist ideals, a denunciation of European colonial rhetoric and practice, and a valorization of African history, traditions, and beliefs. Césaire started to conceptualize the language of Négritude in a short work entitled “Négreries,” published in a 1935 issue of L'Etudiant ... log in or subscribe to read full text