(ii): The "Négritude" Movement and "African Philosophy"

In 1928, the young Léopold Sédar Senghor left his home in Senegal to study in Paris. Disillusioned by the ill-treatment of Africans in France and its colonies, he joined with his friend Aimé Césaire in 1929 to found a review called L'Etudiant noir, which proclaimed the principle of «négritude» (Guibert 1962, 15). The «négritude» movement sought to revalue the thought and culture of traditional Africa (see Mudimbe 1988, 83). Disenchanted with the racism they experienced in the French Communist party in Paris, the négritude group eventually broke with many aspects of communist ideology. In 1948 Senghor renounced his Read More