Léopold Sédar Senghor

Lore & Background

Senghor was born on 9 October 1906 in the city of Joal, some 110 kilometres south of Dakar. His father, Basile Diogoye Senghor, was a wealthy peanut merchant belonging to the bourgeois Serer people. His mother, Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhoum (1861–1948), was a Muslim with Fula origin who belonged to the Tabor tribe, born near Djilor to a Christian family. She gave birth to six children, including two sons.

Senghor's birth certificate states he was born on 9 October 1906; his certificate of baptism states 9 August 1906. His Serer middle name Sédar means 'one that shall not be humiliated' or 'the one you cannot humiliate'. His surname Senghor is a combination of the Serer words Sène and gor (or ghor), meaning male or man. Tukura Badiar Senghor, the prince of Sine, is a figure from whom Senghor has been reported to trace descent.

At age eight, Senghor began studies at the Ngasobil boarding school. In 1922, he entered a seminary in Dakar. After being told religious life was not for him, he attended a secular institution. He won distinctions in French, Latin and Greek.

"Sixteen years of wandering": 1928–1944

With his Baccalaureate completed, he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies in France. In 1928, he sailed for France. He studied at the Sorbonne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He was granted his agrégation in French grammar in 1935.

Academic career

He taught at the lycée René-Descartes in Tours and the lycée Marcelin-Berthelot near Paris. He studied linguistics taught by Lilias Homburger and studied with Marcel Cohen, Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet. Senghor coined the term and conceived the notion of 'négritude'.

Military service

In 1939, he was enlisted in the 3rd Colonial Infantry Regiment. In June 1940, the Germans took him prisoner. He was interned in camps, finally at Front Stalag 230 in Poitiers. He spent two years in prison camps.

In 1942, he was released for medical reasons. He resumed teaching while involved in the resistance. After the war, he was selected as Dean of the Linguistics Department with the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer until Senegal's independence in 1960. He became député for Sénégal-Mauritanie.

Political changes

In 1948, with Mamadou Dia, he founded the Bloc démocratique sénégalais. He was re-elected deputy in 1951. He was state secretary to the council's president from 1 March 1955 to 1 February 1956. He became mayor of Thiès in November 1956 and advisory minister from 23 July 1959 to 19 May 1961.

Roots in Serer Heritage and Early Formation

Born on 9 October 1906 in Joal, some 110 kilometres south of Dakar, Senghor entered the world into a family of considerable wealth and prestige. His father, Basile Diogoye Senghor, was a wealthy Serer peanut merchant who owned thousands of cattle and vast tracts of land, some of which had been granted by his cousin, the king of Sine. His mother, Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhoum, was a Muslim woman of Fula Tabor origin who had herself been born into a Christian family near Djilor. The middle name Sédar carries deep Serer resonance, meaning 'one that shall not be humiliated,' while the surname Senghor fuses the Serer word for the Supreme Deity with a term for man.

At age eight he entered the Ngasobil boarding school run by the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, then moved to a seminary in Dakar before being redirected toward secular studies. His hunger for French literature was already intense, and he earned distinctions across French, Latin, Greek, and Algebra. A scholarship then carried him to France, launching what he would later describe as his 'sixteen years of wandering.'

Forging Négritude in the Parisian Intellectual World

After a turbulent academic path through the Sorbonne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Senghor finally secured his agrégation in French grammar in 1935 on his second attempt. He went on to teach at lycées in Tours and the Paris suburbs while simultaneously studying linguistics under Lilias Homburger at the École pratique des hautes études and engaging with social scientists such as Marcel Cohen, Marcel Mauss, and Paul Rivet at the Institut d'ethnologie. It was within this circle of African diaspora intellectuals in the colonial capital that Senghor and his peers coined the term and conceived the notion of 'négritude.' The concept was a deliberate counterstrike against the racism still prevalent in French society, transforming the derogatory label nègre into a proud celebration of African culture and character. This intellectual framework did not remain confined to literary criticism; it became the philosophical backbone of Senghor's political thinking, shaping his advocacy for African empowerment within French-African ties and his insistence that full civil and political rights for France's African territories were non-negotiable.

From President to Autocrat: The Senegalese Experiment

Senghor founded the Senegalese Democratic Bloc in 1948 and went on to become the first president of independent Senegal in 1960. His early years in office were marked by a dramatic rupture with his long-time political ally Mamadou Dia, who served as prime minister. In 1962, Senghor arrested Dia on suspicion of fomenting a coup and held him in prison for twelve years. In the aftermath, Senghor consolidated power by establishing an authoritarian one-party state in which rival political parties were suppressed.

It was not until 1976 that he permitted opposition parties to operate, though the political landscape remained heavily tilted in favour of his own party. After two decades at the helm, Senghor chose to retire in 1980, transferring power to Abdou Diouf. His governance record thus reflects a complex trajectory: from champion of African rights within a French federal structure to a leader who concentrated authority firmly in his own hands.

A Voice That Transcended Borders

Beyond the corridors of Senegalese politics, Senghor's stature as a cultural figure reached extraordinary heights. He became the first African ever elected as a member of the Académie française, a recognition that underscored his standing in the broader world of letters. In 1985 he was awarded the International Nonino Prize in Italy, further cementing his international literary reputation.

Many scholars and commentators regard him as one of the most important African intellectuals of the entire twentieth century. His life spanned an extraordinary arc: from a Serer family in Joal to the hallowed halls of Parisian academia, from two years in German prisoner-of-war camps where he composed poetry and studied Goethe in the original, to the presidency of a newly independent nation. His poetic voice, his theoretical work on négritude, and his political vision together constituted a singular contribution to how the world understood African identity and culture in the modern era.

Reader's Guide

Senghor was ideologically an African socialist and 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. He 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. He 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.