Negritude (Literary movement)

Négritude (from French "nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness"; pronounced [neɡʁityd]) is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, politicians, and visual artists in the African diaspora during the 1930s, aimed at raising and cultivating "black consciousness" across Africa and its diaspora. The progenitors of Négritude included the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, Abdoulaye Sadji, Léopold Sédar Senghor (the first President of Senegal), and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Négritude intellectuals disavowed colonialism, racism and Eurocentrism. They promoted African culture within a framework of persistent Franco-African ties. The intellectuals employed Marxist political philosophy, in the black radical tradition. The writers drew heavily on a surrealist literary style, and some say they were also influenced somewhat by the Surrealist stylistics, and in their work often explored the experience of diasporic being, asserting one's self and identity, and ideas of home, home-going and belonging. Visual artists inspired by the Négritude philosophy created works based on the same themes. Négritude inspired the birth of many movements across the Afro-Diasporic world, including Afro-Surrealism, Créolité and Antillanité in the Caribbean, and black is beautiful in the United States. Frantz Fanon often made reference to Négritude in his writing.