Negritude:Leopold Sedar Senghor‟s search for African heritage and identity

Abstract

Negritude is a literary and political movement founded in Paris in the 1930s by a group of students from the French Caribbean and Africa. The founding members, Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor, and Léon Damas hoped to eliminate the barriers between black students from the various French colonies. They were not only concerned with the cooperation between Blacks within the group, but also with the well-being and unity of the black race. Negritude constituted a dream and above all a philosophy of action for the black people as a race of discriminated and exploited humanity. Negritude contained in its vision a new African personality, African world-view, and a path to authentic black existence. It is from this perspective that the movement has exercised lasting influence in African history.

Keywords: Negritude, culture, Africa, imperialism, Senghor