Black Cosmopolitanism and Anticolonialism Pivotal Moments Routledge Studies in Modern History Series

This book examines the cosmopolitanism and anticolonialism that black intellectuals, such as the African American W.E.B. Du Bois, the Caribbeans Marcus Garvey and George Padmore, and the Francophone West Africans (Kojo Touvalou-Houénou, Lamine Senghor, and Léopold Sédar Senghor) developed during the two world wars by fighting for freedom, equality, and justice for Senegalese and other West African colonial soldiers (known as tirailleurs) who made enormous sacrifices to liberate France from German oppression.

Focusing on the solidarity between this special group of African American, Caribbean, and Francophone West African intellectuals against French colonialism, this book uncovers pivotal moments of black Anglophone and Francophone cosmopolitanism and traces them to published and archived writings produced between 1914 and the middle of the twentieth century.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction Writing Africa into Black Atlantic Studies

1 Blaise Diagne’s Cosmopolitanism and Views on French Colonialism

2 W.E.B. Du Bois’s Cosmopolitanism, anticolonialism, and Relations with Blaise Diagne

3 Marcus Garvey’s Cosmopolitanism, anticolonialism, and Responses to Blaise Diagne

4 Kojo Touvalou-Houénou’s Cosmopolitanism, anticolonialism, and Relations with Marcus Garvey

5 Lamine Senghor’s Cosmopolitanism, anticolonialism, and Similarities with Marcus Garvey

6 George Padmore’s Cosmopolitanism and Views on French Colonialism

7 Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Cosmopolitanism and Responses to French Colonialism

Conclusion: Roadblocks to Black Cosmopolitanism

Index

Babacar M’Baye is Associate Professor in the Department of English and the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University, USA.