Senghor, Léopold Sédar (1906–2001)

Senegalese politician and writer, the first president of independent Senegal 1960–80. Previously he was Senegalese deputy to the French national assembly 1946–58, and founder of the Senegalese Progressive Union. He was also a well-known poet and a founder of négritude, a black literary and philosophical movement.

Senghor studied at the Sorbonne in Paris 1935–39 (the first West African to complete the agrégation there), where he was a strong advocate of pride in his native Africa, developing the literary movement known as négritude, celebrating black identity, and lamenting the baneful impact of European culture on traditional black culture.

He served in the French army during World War II, and was in a German concentration camp 1940–42; his wartime experience aided him in leading his country, French West Africa, to independence in 1956 as Senegal. His works, written in French, include Songs of the Shade (1945), Ethiopiques (1956), and On African Socialism (1961). He was a founder of the journal Présence africaine.