[6] During World War I Lucie Cousturier lived in a house in Fréjus purchased in 1913, "Les Parasols", beside which there were camps where Senegalese riflemen staying before going up to the front.

The minister of colonies heard of Cousturier's work with the Senegalese, and gave her a mission to visit West Africa and to make a "study of the indigène's family milieu and, more particularly, the role of the female indigène with regard to the influence she exercises over the moral formation of children.

[8] She was unprejudiced, related to people as she found them, went out of her way to form friendships with African women, and was always conscious of her own position as a member of the colonial elite.

[8] Lucie Cousturier was one of the first to write on the subject of the relationships between Africans and Europeans, ahead of other French intellectuals such as André Gide with Voyage au Congo (1927) and Retour du Tchad (1928) and Michel Leiris with (L'Afrique fantôme (1934).

[4] After her return to France she wrote in Le Paria (The Outcast), a newspaper for the black and yellow proletariat",[a] She devoted the rest of her life to the struggle for the emancipation of people of color.

[2] In October 1923, for the re-opening of his Galerie de Bruxelles, George Giroux staged an exhibition of the works of Paul Signac and Lucie Cousturier, including 164 of her drawings and watercolors from the African journey.

Her complete work was published in 1925 as two volumes: Mes Inconnus chez eux: Mon ami Fatou (My strangers in their home: My friend Fatou) and Mes Inconnus chez eux: Mon ami Soumaré.