The Negritude movement which signaled the awakening of a panAfricanconsciousness among black French intellectuals has been understood almostexclusively in terms... » 

The Negritude movement which signaled the awakening of a panAfricanconsciousness among black French intellectuals has been understood almostexclusively in terms of the contributions of its male founders Aime CesaireLeopold Sedar Senghor and Leon G. Damas. This masculine genealogy hascompletely overshadowed the central role played by Frenchspeaking black womenin its creation and evolution. In Negritude Women T. Denean SharpleyWhitingoffers a longoverdue corrective revealing the contributions made by fourwomen Suzanne Lacascade Jane and Paulette Nardal and Suzanne RoussyCesaire who were not merely integral to the success of the movement butoften in its vanguard.Through such disparate tactics as Lacascades use of Creole expressions in herFrench prose writings the literary salon and journal founded by theMartiniqueborn Nardal sisters and RoussyCesaires revolutionary blend ofsurrealism and Negritude in the pages of Tropiques the journal she foundedwith her husband these four remarkable women made vital contributions. Inexploring their influence on the development of themes central to Negritude black humanism the affirmation of black peoples and their cultures and therehabilitation of Africa SharpleyWhiting provides the movements firstgenuinely inclusive history. «