LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR

Ideologically an African socialist, Senghor was one of the major theoreticians of Negritude. 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 and imprisoning him for 12 years. Senghor established an authoritarian one-party state in Senegal where all rival political parties were prohibited.

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:

Leopold Sedar 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[1] belonging to the bourgeois Serer people. 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.[5] His Serer middle name Sédar comes from the Serer language, meaning "one that shall not be humiliated" or "the one you cannot humiliate".] 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)[8] 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 c. 13th-century Serer noble.

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.

 to continue his studies in France.

"Sixteen years of wandering": 1928–1944

In 1928, Senghor sailed from Senegal for France, beginning, in his words, "sixteen years of wandering.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 Superieure, 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 agregation in 1935 at his second attempt.

Academic career:

Senghor graduated from the University of Paris, where he received the Agregation in French Grammar. Subsequently, he was designated professor at the universities of Tours and Paris, where he taught during the period 1935–45.

Senghor started his teaching years at the lycee Rene-Descartes in Tours; he also taught at the lycee Marcelin-Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses near Paris.] 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). 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 negre into a positively connoted celebration of African culture and character. The idea of négritude informed not only Senghor's cultural criticism and literary work, but also became a guiding principle for his political thought in his career as a statesman. 

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