While Senghor is most well known as Senegals skillful president 19601981, he is also one of Africas most skilled and acclaimed poets. His brilliance was recognized early as he completed his Baccalaureat in 1927 and received a scholarship to go to France for further studies. There Senghor gained French citizenship and was the first African to complete the agregation de lUniversite exam, allowing him to teach at both the lycée and university level. Through his diverse publications, such as Shadow Songs 1945, Black Hosts 1946, Songs for Naett 1949, Nocturnes 1961, and Letters in the Season of Hivernage1972, Senghor built a name for himself as one of Africas premier French language artisans. As such he became the first African member of the Académie Française, where he helped form a bridge between continental and colonial French. The Académie is widely regarded as the most distinguished French intellectual association, and is charged with compiling a dictionary of acceptable new words and usage. There Senghor helped create a language of expression that at once allows for the propagation of ethnic and national norms and reaches a broad Francophone audience. Senghor is most famous for his giving the term negritude wide application. For Senghor, negritude is ones identification of ones blackness without reference to culture, language, or geography. In this way, negritude transcends the deep divisions within and between Arabs, Africans, and the African Diaspora by recognizing a common racial thread. Negritude is the emergence of a powerful black presence in the world. It has in many ways become the basis for Afrocentricity.

Website: http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/cm/africana/senghor.htm