Léopold Sédar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor (9 October 1906 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who served as the first president of Senegal (1960–1980). Senghor was the first African to sit as a member of the Académie française. He was also the founder of the political party called the Senegalese Democratic Bloc. He is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th century.

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Léopold Sédar Senghor was born on 9 October 1906 in the small coastal city of Joal, some one hundred kilometres south of Dakar. Basile Diogoye Senghor, Léopold's father, was a businessman belonging to the bourgeois tribe Serer, a minority group in Senegal. Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhou, Léopold's mother, and the third wife of his father, was Muslim of Peul origin belonging to the Tabor tribe. She gave birth to six children, including two sons. Senghor had also inherited from the Serers, apart his first name, his two last names: his father's name, Senghor (derived from the Portuguese for Lord, Senhor ) and the Serere's name Sedar (meaning "One that shall not be humiliated").

Poet: Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. Poets are often regarded as imaginative thinkers or writers. Bad poets are called poetasters....

President: President is a title held by many leaders of organizations, companies, universities, and countries. Etymologically, a "president" is one who presides, who sits in leadership (from Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit"). Originally, the term usually referred to the presiding officer of a ceremony or...

Académie française: The Acad?mie fran?aise, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Acad?mie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was restor...

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