The Crisis of Negritude

A Study of the Black Movement Against Intellectual Oppression in the Early 20th Century

by Emmanuel E. Egar

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Synopsis

The Negritude movement was initiated in the 1930s by the sisters Jane and Paulette Nardal, who created a journal called The Review of the African World-- a journal that recognized the value of black experiences globally. The name of the movement was grafted from a poem by Aimie Cesaire, "The Return to the Native Land." Negritude flourished between 1930 and 1960, until its eventual collapse due to problems with definitions, ideological floundering, and the burden of foreign language that was inflicted by the writings of Jean Paul Sartre.

About the Author

Emmanuel Egar is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He has a Ph.D. in English and a Ph.D in Higher Education. He is the author of The Rhetorical Implications of Things Fall Apart, Black Women Poets of Harlem Renaissance, The Poetics of Rage, and Lakeview Arkansas: The Unknown Paradise.