Negritude

[ neg-ri-tood, -tyood, nee-gri- ]

noun

, Older Use: Often Offensive.

1. (sometimes lowercase) the historical, cultural, and social heritage considered common to Black people collectively.

negritude

/ ˈnɛɡ-; ˈniːɡrɪˌtjuːd /

noun

1. the fact of being a Negro
2. awareness and cultivation of the Negro heritage, values, and culture

Sensitive Note

See Black ¹.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Negritude¹

First recorded in 1945–50; from French négritude; Negro none, -i- none, -tude none

Word History and Origins

Origin of Negritude¹

C20: from French, from nègre Negro ¹

Example Sentences

Fanon’s thinking syncretizes intellectual movements of the time — from Negritude to Existentialism, as well as thoughts on clinical psychology and colonialism — giving them voice in a dramatic style: soaring, sermon-like, poetic.

From Los Angeles Times

In the 1960s, Mr. Senghor helped foster the Negritude library movement that championed the idea of a shared identity among Africans across the world.

From New York Times

Those years, the years of decolonization that followed World War II, are the subject of a book by anthropologist and historian Gary Wilder, “Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization and the Future of the World.”

From Seattle Times

I remember believing that the key to all life lay in articulating the precise difference between “the Black Aesthetic” and “Negritude.”

From Literature

She cited Black Label by Léon-Gontran Damas, a founding father of the Negritude cultural movement, and a native, like Taubira, of Cayenne, French Guiana.

From Newsweek