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Demonstrating a rare combination of intellectual, artistic, and political talent, Senghor has towered over modern Senegal unlike any other figure in that country's history. Senghor's lifelong quest to find a synthesis, artistically and politically, between two seemingly opposing ways of life — African and European — inspired his lifelong record of creative achievement. Although as a youth he immersed himself in French culture, his ultimate inability to become "a black-skinned Frenchman" led him to cultivate his "Africanness." He helped to define two of the key political and intellectual movements of 20th-century Africa: African socialism and Négritude.
Born to a Serer father and a Fulani mother, Senghor has striven to represent all of Senegal's peoples in his writing and politics. He attended Roman Catholic mission schools in what was then French West Africa and, in 1922, entered the Collège Libermann, a seminary in Dakar, where he intended to study for the priesthood. He was forced to leave the seminary after participating in a protest against racism. After graduating from secondary school in 1928, Senghor won a scholarship to study in France.
While at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Senghor studied contemporary French literature, including the work of Charles Baudelaire, on whom Senghor wrote his thesis. Senghor also studied the intellectual underpinnings of French political thought between the two world wars. Georges Pompidou, who later became the French president, was a classmate and a friend. Senghor was drafted into the French Army at the start of World War II (1939-1945), after teaching classics at schools in Tours and Paris.
Outside class, Senghor absorbed the intellectual ferment of Paris in the 1930s. Black students, writers, and artists from Africa, North America, and the Caribbean were discovering their common roots and defining their identities in opposition to colonial rule. The Pan-African Congress and the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and the Harlem Renaissance all recognized and celebrated a growing black confidence and self-awareness, and this intellectual awakening deeply influenced Senghor and his contemporaries. In 1932 Senghor met Aimé Césaire, a writer from Martinique who would become an influential literary figure. Césaire and Senghor cofounded a newspaper, L'Étudiant noir (The Black Student) and founded a new artistic and intellectual movement, Négritude. The movement went beyond opposition to colonialism to attack white racism. Négritude sought to explore the common experience of peoples of African descent and to formulate a new black identity. Senghor would later say that the philosophy embodies the "sum total of African values of civilization."
The years after World War II were the high point of Senghor's political career. In 1945 and 1946 Senghor, along with his political mentor, Lamine Guèye, was elected to represent Senegal in the French Constituent Assembly (later the National Assembly). He won reelection and served in the National Assembly until 1958. Meanwhile, in 1948, he became a professor at the École Nationale de la France d'Outre mer. Senghor became president of the parliament of the Federation of Mali, comprised of present-day Senegal and Mali, when it became independent in April 1960. Several months later the federation collapsed, and Senghor was elected the first president of Senegal. As a Serer Christian leading a predominantly Muslim and Wolof country, Senghor's political career can itself be considered an expression of Négritude, in that his African cultural background enabled him to serve and lead his people despite these differences.
Senghor also launched his literary career in earnest in 1945 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Songs of the Shadow. Two years later, in collaboration with fellow Senegalese Alioune Diop, he helped launch the journal Présence Africaine, which showcased African literature, including Senghor's writing. Torn between two very different worlds, Senghor dramatized the identity crisis of the westernized African. He pushed French poetry past its preoccupation with the exotic, implying a detachment from the other. Instead, Senghor's poetry presents a personal confrontation with the African past and present. "Black Woman," one of his most famous poems, uses classical Western themes to describe the figure of an African woman and, by extension, black humanity.
Throughout the next two decades a number of other poetry volumes followed and received critical acclaim both for their vivid language and imagery and for their broader themes. While he was president (1960-1980) Senghor published less. However, he won the Apollinaire Prize for Poetry in 1974, and he published volumes of poetry in 1979 and 1980.
As Senegalese president during the 1960s and 1970s, Senghor implemented a moderate (pro-Western) form of African socialism, in which the state played a major role in the economy in alliance with the established indigenous elite. He also replaced Senegal's multiparty democracy in the early 1960s with a one-party authoritarian state. However, in the so-called passive revolution of 1976, Senghor responded to economic and political stagnation by introducing greater political and economic freedom. However, Senegal's economic crisis persisted, and, bowing to popular discontent, Senghor retired from office in 1980, one of the few African rulers to voluntarily relinquish power. He left a legacy of relative stability and freedom of expression in Senegal. However, Senghor had also monopolized power and discouraged debate and opposition, and thus contributed to the stagnation of Senegalese politics.
Since his retirement, Senghor has resettled in Verson, France, the hometown of his wife. In 1988 he published a philosophical memoir entitled Ce que je crois (What I Believe). During he 1990s he published poetry and cultivated a quiet seclusion.
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