Leopold Sedar Senghor 1906 – 2001
Leopold Sedar Senghor was a Senegalese poet, philosopher, and the first president of independent Senegal. As a student in Paris in the 1930s, he was a co-founder of the Negritude movement alongside Aime Cesaire and Leon Damas, articulating a vision of a distinctly African mode of knowing and being and a humanism rooted in the convergence of cultures. After serving twenty years as president, he retired voluntarily, an act unusual among African heads of state of his generation. He was the first African elected to the Academie francaise.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Senegalese
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Postcolonial Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor:
“Negritude is the sum of cultural values of the black world.”
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Attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor:
“Civilization, in the end, is dialogue.”
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Attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor:
“African socialism is not a doctrine; it is the result of African experience.”
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Attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor:
“Culture is at the beginning and at the end of all development.”
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Attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor:
“We must not regret the past, but prepare the future.”