Co-existential Negritude
CO-EXISTENTIAL NEGRITUDE In the 1930s, African literature was influenced by two anti-racist ideologies: Negritude and Pan-Africanism. The principle of assimilation was a peculiar characteristic of the French African Colonies. It aimed at making people in the colony french citizens and influencing them to walk, talk, dress and behave like french men and women inhabitants of these colonies considered the principle of assimilation to be a direct attack on their identity. In Senghor’s poem “Black woman" he wrote ".. .I come upon you, my Promised Land, And your beauty strikes me to the heart… “ The word Promised land was used to portray Africa as the home of every black not French culture and ephemeral (the land is promised it might have been underdeveloped as at then but there was a hope that it was their haven). The first proponent of this ideology, Aime Cesaire did speak of a balance between cultures: that modern elements, western culture and the traditional...