Léopold Senghor

Léopold Senghor (born Oct. 9, 1906, Joal, Senegal, French West Africa [now in Senegal]—died Dec. 20, 2001, Verson, France) was a poet, teacher, and statesman, the first president of Senegal, and a major proponent of the concept of Negritude.

Senghor was the son of a prosperous Serer planter and trader. His mother was a Roman Catholic and sent him to a nearby Catholic mission and seminary in order to fulfill his first ambition, which was to become a teacher-priest. At age 20 he realized that the priesthood was not his calling, and he transferred to the lycée (secondary school) in the capital city of Dakar.

In 1928 Senghor went to Paris on a partial scholarship and continued his formal studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and at the Sorbonne. During these years Senghor discovered the unmistakable imprint of African art on modern painting, sculpture, and music, which confirmed his belief in Africa’s potential contribution to modern culture.

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In 1935 Senghor became the first African agrégé, the highest rank of qualified teacher in the French school system, which allowed him to teach at both the lycée and university levels. He first taught French in Tours, but eventually he became a professor of African languages and civilization at the École Nationale de la France d’Outre-Mer. Drafted in 1939 at the beginning of World War II, he was captured in 1940 and spent two years in Nazi concentration camps, where he wrote some of his finest poems. On his release he joined the Resistance in France.

After the war Senghor became a member of the French Constituent Assembly. In 1946 he was sent as one of Senegal’s two deputies to the National Assembly in Paris. Elected on the Socialist ticket, Senghor founded the Senegalese Democratic Bloc in 1948 and, as that party’s candidate, was reelected by a wide margin in the 1951 elections for the French National Assembly. Five years later he became mayor of Thiès, Senegal’s railroad centre, and was reelected deputy.

The French West African colonies increasingly pressed for independence. When the French parliament passed (1956) the loi cadre, which gave a large measure of self-government to the African territories, Senghor was one of the first to oppose the act, because he felt its emphasis on territorial rather than federal government would result in the proliferation of small, unviable states. To counter the act, Senghor helped establish an alliance between French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa that led to the creation in 1959 of the short-lived Mali Federation, of which Senegal was a member (along with French Sudan [Mali], Dahomey [Benin], and Upper Volta [Burkina Faso]). In December 1959 Senghor made an eloquent appeal to French President Charles de Gaulle for independence. The Mali Federation lasted only until the following August, when its last two members, Senegal and French Sudan, separated, Senegal became an independent republic, and Senghor was unanimously elected president.

In late 1962 Prime Minister Mamadou Dia, a longtime protégé of Senghor, attempted a coup d’état. The Senegalese people rallied behind Senghor, however, and Dia was sentenced to life imprisonment (he was released in 1974). Senghor was reelected president in 1963 and retired on Dec. 31, 1980, the first African president to leave office voluntarily. Abdou Diouf, whom Senghor had chosen as his successor, became the next president.

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As chief executive, Senghor tried to modernize Senegal’s agriculture, instill a sense of enlightened citizenship, combat corruption and inefficiency, forge closer ties with his African neighbours, and continue cooperation with the French. He advocated a form of socialism that was based on African realities and was often called “African socialism.” Senghor’s socialism was democratic and humanistic, and it shunned such slogans as “dictatorship of the proletariat.” A vigorous spokesman for the Third World, he protested unfair terms of trade that worked to the disadvantage of African nations.

Along with Aimé Césaire of Martinique and Léon G. Damas of French Guiana, Senghor was one of the originators in the 1930s and ’40s of the concept of Negritude, which is often defined as the literary and artistic expression of the black African experience. Senghor became Negritude’s foremost spokesman. In 1947 he helped establish the journal Présence Africaine, which published the works of African writers, and in 1948 he edited an anthology of French-language poetry by black Africans that became a seminal text of the Negritude movement. He was also a distinguished poet in his own right whose books include Chants d’ombre (1945; Songs of Shadow), Hosties noires (1948; Black Offerings), Éthiopiques (1956), Nocturnes (1961), and Élégies majeures (1979; Major Elegies). His poetry was collected in Oeuvre poétique (1990; Poetical Work). Senghor was inducted into the French Academy in 1984, becoming the first African member in that body’s history.

After he left Senegalese politics, he retired to France, where he had been a citizen since 1932. He published a memoir, Ce que je crois: négritude, francité, et civilisation de l’universel (1988; “That Which I Believe: Negritude, Frenchness, and Universal Civilization”), as well as more poetry.

Senghor’s career was replete with paradoxes. Although a Roman Catholic and a Serer, he headed a predominantly Muslim, Wolof nation. An outstanding intellectual, he drew his main support from the peasants. A fervent supporter of African culture, he also appreciated the cultural contributions of the West. A distinguished poet, he was in addition a professional politician of great skill who guided his nation to independence and proved to be an able and effective leader.