Léopold Sédar Senghor ( , , ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980.
Ideologically an African socialist, Senghor was one of the major theoreticians of Négritude. He was a proponent of African culture, black identity, and African empowerment within the framework of French-African ties. He advocated for the extension of full civil and political rights for France's African territories while arguing that French Africans would be better off within a federal French structure than as independent nation-states.
Senghor became the first president of independent Senegal. He fell out with his long-standing associate Mamadou Dia, who was the prime minister of Senegal, arresting him on suspicion of fomenting a coup in 1962 and imprisoning him for 12 years. Following this, Senghor established an authoritarian one-party state where rival political parties were suppressed. In 1976, Senghor permitted opposition parties while retaining an unequal playing field favoring his party. Senghor retired in 1980, handing power to Abdou Diouf.
Senghor was the founder of the Senegalese Democratic Bloc party in 1948. He was the first African elected as a member of the Académie française and won the 1985 International Nonino Prize in Italy. Senghor is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th century.
Early years: 1906–28 Léopold Sédar Senghor was born on 9 October 1906 in the city of Joal, some 110 kilometres south of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. His father, Basile Diogoye Senghor (pronounced: Basile Jogoy Senghor), was a wealthy peanut merchant belonging to the bourgeois Serer people.Bibliographie, Dakar, Bureau de documentation de la Présidence de la République, 1982 (2nd édition), 158 pp.Senegalaisement.com. Basile Senghor was said to be a man of great means and owned thousands of cattle and vast lands, some of which were given to him by his cousin the king of Sine. Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhoum (1861–1948), Senghor's mother, the third wife of his father, a Muslim with Fula origin who belonged to the Tabor tribe, was born near Djilor to a Christian family. She gave birth to six children, including two sons.
Senghor's birth certificate states that he was born on 9 October 1906; however, there is a discrepancy with his certificate of baptism, which states it occurred on 9 August 1906. His Serer middle name Sédar comes from the Serer language, meaning "one that shall not be humiliated" or "the one you cannot humiliate".Université De La Vallée D'Aoste. LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR (1906–2001).Becker, Charles, and Waly Coly Faye, "La Nomination Sereer", Ethiopiques, n° 54, revue semestrielle de culture Négro-Africaine Nouvelle série volume 7, 2e semestre 1991.
His surname Senghor is a combination of the Serer words Sène (a Serer surname and the name of the Supreme Deity in Serer religion called Rog Sene)Thiaw, Issa Laye, "La Religiousite des Sereer, Avant et Pendant Leur Islamisation", Ethiopiques, No. 54, Revue Semestrielle de Culture Négro-Africaine. Nouvelle Série, Vol. 7, 2e Semestre 1991. and gor or ghor, the etymology of which is kor in the Serer language, meaning male or man. Tukura Badiar Senghor, the prince of Sine and a figure from whom Léopold Sédar Senghor has been reported to trace descent, was a Serer noble.R. P. Gravrand, Le Gabou Dans Les Traditions Orales Du Ngabou, Ethiopiques numéro 28 – numéro special, Revue Socialiste de culture Négro-Africaine. Octobre 1981.Sarr, Alioune, Histoire du Sine-Saloum, Introduction, bibliographie et Notes par Charles Becker, BIFAN, Tome 46, Serie B, n° 3–4, 1986–1987.
At the age of eight, Senghor began his studies in Senegal in the Ngasobil boarding school of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit. In 1922, he entered a seminary in Dakar. After being told that religious life was not for him, he attended a secular institution. By then, he was already passionate about French literature. He won distinctions in French, Latin, Greek and Algebra. With his Baccalaureate completed, he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies in France.Ryan, Bryan. Major 20th-Century Writers: a selection of sketches from contemporary authors, Volume 4, Gale Research, 1991. , .
"Sixteen years of wandering": 1928–1944 In 1928, Senghor sailed from Senegal for France, beginning, in his words, "sixteen years of wandering".Peters, Jonathan. A Dance of Masks: Senghor, Achebe, Soyinka, Three Continents Press, 1978. , ,. Starting his post-secondary studies at the Sorbonne, he quit and went on to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand to finish his preparatory course for entrance to the École Normale Supérieure, a grande école. Henri Queffélec, Robert Verdier and Georges Pompidou were also studying at this elite institution. After failing the entrance exam, Senghor prepared for his grammar Agrégation. He was granted his agrégation in 1935 at his second attempt.Vaillant, Janet G., Black, French, and African: a life of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Harvard University Press, 1990. , ..
Academic career Senghor graduated from the University of Paris, where he received the Agrégation in French Grammar. Subsequently, he was designated professor at the universities of Tours and Paris, where he taught during the period 1935–45.The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 17, World Book, 2000. , .
Senghor started his teaching years at the lycée René-Descartes in Tours; he also taught at the lycée Marcelin-Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses near Paris.Girault, Jacques, Lecherbonnier Bernard, Université Paris-Nord. Center for Comparative Literary Studies and French. Leopold Sedar Senghor: Africanity – universality: 29–30 May 2000, Harmattan, 2002. , . He also studied linguistics taught by Lilias Homburger at the École pratique des hautes études. He studied with prominent social scientists such as Marcel Cohen, Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet, director of the Institut d'ethnologie de Paris.Michelle M. Wright. Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2004. 0822332884, 9780822332886.
Senghor, along with other intellectuals of the African diaspora who had come to study in the colonial capital, coined the term and conceived the notion of "négritude", which was a response to the racism still prevalent in France. It turned the racial slur nègre into a positively connoted celebration of African culture and character. The idea of négritude informed Senghor's cultural criticism and literary work, and became a guiding principle for his political thought in his career as a statesman.Michelle M. Wright. Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2004. 0822332884, 9780822332886.
Military service In 1939, Senghor was enlisted in the 3rd Colonial Infantry Regiment of the French army with the rank of private (2e Classe) despite his higher education. In June 1940, the invading Germans took him prisoner in la Charité-sur-Loire or Villabon. He was interned in a succession of camps, and finally at Front Stalag 230, in Poitiers. Front Stalag 230 was reserved for colonial troops captured during the war.
According to Senghor, German soldiers wanted to execute him and the others on the day they were captured, but they escaped this fate by yelling Vive la France, vive l'Afrique noire! ("Long live France, long live Black Africa!"). A French officer told the soldiers that executing the African prisoners would dishonour the Aryan race and the German Army. Senghor spent two years in different prison camps, where he spent most of his time writing poems, and learning enough German to read Goethe's poetry in the original. In 1942, he was released for medical reasons.Stokes, Jamie, Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 1. Infobase Publishing, 2009. , .
He resumed his teaching career while remaining involved in the resistance during the Nazi occupation.
Political career: 1945–1982 Colonial France Senghor advocated for African integration within the French Empire, arguing that independence for small, weak territories would lead to the perpetuation of oppression, whereas African empowerment within a federal French Empire could transform it for the better.
Once the war was over, Senghor was selected as Dean of the Linguistics Department with the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer, a position he would hold until Senegal's independence in 1960.Selected Poems of Leopold Sedar Senghor. CUP Archive. While travelling on a research trip for his poetry, he met the local socialist leader, Lamine Guèye, who suggested that Senghor run for election as a member of the Assemblée nationale française. Senghor accepted and became député for the riding of Sénégal-Mauritanie, when colonies were granted the right to be represented by elected individuals. They took different positions when the train conductors on the Dakar-Niger line went on strike. Guèye voted against the strike, arguing the movement would paralyse the colony, while Senghor supported the workers, which gained him great support among Senegalese.Hymans, Jacques Louis, Léopold Sédar Senghor: an intellectual biography, Edinburgh University Press, 1971. 0852241194, 9780852241196.
During the negotiations to write the French Constitution of 1946, Senghor pushed for the extension of French citizenship to all French territories. Four Senegalese communes had citizenship since 1916 – Senghor argued that this should be extended to the rest of France's territory. Senghor argued for a federal model whereby each African territory would govern its own internal affairs, and this federation would be part of a larger French confederation that run foreign affairs, defence and development policies. Senghor opposed indigenous nationalism, arguing that African territories would develop more successfully within a federal model where each territory had its "negro-African personality" along with French experience and resources.
Political changes In 1947, Senghor left the African Division of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), which had given enormous financial support to the social movement. With Mamadou Dia, he founded the Bloc démocratique sénégalais (1948). They won the legislative elections of 1951, and Guèye lost his seat.Gwendolen Margaret Carter, Charles F. Gallagher. African One-Party States, Cornell University Press, 1964. Senghor was involved in the negotiations and drafting of the Fourth Republic's constitution.
Re-elected deputy in 1951 as an independent overseas member, Senghor was appointed state secretary to the council's president in Edgar Faure's government from 1 March 1955 to 1 February 1956. He became mayor of the city of Thiès, Senegal in November 1956 and then advisory minister in the Michel Debré's government from 23 July 1959 to 19 May 1961. He was also a member of the commission responsible for drafting the Fifth Republic's constitution, general councillor for Senegal, member of the Grand Conseil de l'Afrique Occidentale Francaise and member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.
In 1964, Senghor published the first volume of a series of five, titled Liberté. The book contains a variety of speeches, essays and prefaces.Azèrad, Hugues, and Peter Collier, Twentieth-century French poetry: a critical anthology, Cambridge University Press, 2010. , .
Senegal Senghor supported federalism for newly independent African states, a type of "French Commonwealth", while retaining a degree of French involvement:
Since federalism was not favoured by the African countries, he decided to form, along with Modibo Keita, the Mali Federation with former French Sudan (present-day Mali). Senghor was president of the Federal Assembly until it failed in 1960.Africa Bureau (London, England). Africa Digest, Volume 8. Africa Publications Trust, 1960.