Negritude
What is Negritude
• Negritude refers to a consciousness of and pride in the
cultural and physical aspects of the African heritage or the
state or condition of being black
• It was an ideology propounded by Caribbean scholars,
influenced by the black experience of slavery, imperialism
and colonialism of the slavery era and after.
• It is a literary and political movement founded in French
Martinique and Paris in the 1930s by a group of students
from the French Caribbean and Africa. The founding
members were , Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor, and Léon
Damas.
Views of Negritude
• The founders of Negritude were in part inspired
by their encounters with members of the Harlem
Renaissance, many of whom were living in France
at the time to escape racism and segregation in
the United States.
• Negritude was not only concerned with the
cooperation between Blacks within the group (
the French Colonies), but also with the well-being
and unity of the black race all over the world.
Views of Negritude
• Negritude therefore strives to be universal, encompassing all
people of African descent. Yet, it is a complex movement which
denounces colonialism, rejects Western domination, and promotes
acceptance of the black self or the consciousness of belonging to
the black race.
• It is through literature that both Césaire and Senghor begin to find
their political voices, and each proceeds to take on an important
role in his respective region after the end of colonialism .
• The literature of Negritude therefore includes the writings of black
intellectuals who affirm black personality and redefine the
collective experience of Blacks.
Objectives of Negritude
• To eliminate the barriers between black students from
the various French colonies and all people of black
decent.
• To reject the political, social and moral domination of
the West and enlighten the black race such that there
is an acceptance of the black self.
• To rehabilitate Africans and all blacks from European
ideology that holds the black inherently inferior to the
white -- the rationale for Western imperialism.
Objectives of Negritude Cont’d
• To counteract the idea of black inferiority (black magic;
black sheep; black market etc.) with black pride.
• To promote the concept of blackness through the arts and
literature (for example the poems, novels and short stories
of Cesaire, Senghor, Omafume Onoge and Gabriel Okara)
Franz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skins
White Masks)
• To draw on the continent of Africa as a course of ethnic
identity and cultural depth. However, Negritude does not
speak of a desire a return to outmoded African customs,
only to the original spirit of the Black race.
Impact of Negritude
• The philosophy of Negritude had an impact on
many Caribbean writers such as Derek
Walcott.
• Negritude was embraced with greater
enthusiasm in Haiti and Cuba than in the
Commonwealth Caribbean