Negritude
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 28, 2012
Leaders: Aime Cesaire (French Martinique), Leon Damas (French Guiana) and Leopold Sedar Senghor (Senegal).
Definition: A literary ideological movement started in 1935 by Afrikan - Caribbean - French - speaking poets/authors to break away from French culture and to give creative identity and expression to an inner, Afrikan self that had been suppressed and hidden away; it represents cultural/linguistic de-colonization/revolution.
It is a nationalistic process whereby Afrikan people who have been cut off from and made to despise their own Afrikan roots/heritage, learn to know themselves, come to accept themselves and begin to believe in themselves again.
Negritude represents the process from historical - ancestral cultural dislocation to historical - ancestral - cultural location.
Function/Purpose: The Afrikan has the task of understanding his own cultural identity/ancestral heritage, to accept it and to believe in its worth, validity and humanism.
The Afrikan personality is the core of Negritude that seeks to cement Afrikan - Caribbean identity.
One Afrikan People!
Shem Hotep ("I go in Peace").
Dr. Kwame Nantambu is a part-time lecturer at Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies.
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