Léopold Sédar Senghor (/sɒŋˈɡɔːr/ song-GOR, French: [leɔpɔl sedaʁ sɑ̃ɡɔʁ]; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980.

He fell out with his long-standing associate Mamadou Dia, who was the prime minister of Senegal, arresting him on suspicion of fomenting a coup and imprisoning him for 12 years.

Léopold Sédar Senghor was born on 9 October 1906 in the city of Joal, some 110 kilometres south of Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

[2][3][4] Basile Senghor was said to be a man of great means and owned thousands of cattle and vast lands, some of which were given to him by his cousin the king of Sine.

Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhoum (1861–1948), Senghor's mother, the third wife of his father, a Muslim with Fula origin who belonged to the Tabor tribe, was born near Djilor to a Christian family.

Senghor, along with other intellectuals of the African diaspora who had come to study in the colonial capital, coined the term and conceived the notion of "négritude", which was a response to the racism still prevalent in France.

The idea of négritude informed not only Senghor's cultural criticism and literary work, but also became a guiding principle for his political thought in his career as a statesman.

[16] In 1939, Senghor was enlisted in the 3rd Colonial Infantry Regiment of the French army with the rank of private (2e Classe) despite his higher education.

A French officer told the soldiers that executing the African prisoners would dishonour the Aryan race and the German Army.

[20] Once the war was over, Senghor was selected as Dean of the Linguistics Department with the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer, a position he would hold until Senegal's independence in 1960.

[21] While travelling on a research trip for his poetry, he met the local socialist leader, Lamine Guèye, who suggested that Senghor run for election as a member of the Assemblée nationale française.

[26] In 1947, Senghor left the African Division of the French Section of the Workers International (SFIO), which had given enormous financial support to the social movement.

[29] Re-elected deputy in 1951 as an independent overseas member, Senghor was appointed state secretary to the council's president in Edgar Faure's government from 1 March 1955 to 1 February 1956.

[43][44][45] As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

[46] Senghor was elected a member of the Académie française on 2 June 1983, at the 16th seat where he succeeded Antoine de Lévis Mirepoix.

Officials attending the ceremony included Raymond Forni, president of the Assemblée nationale and Charles Josselin, state secretary for the minister of foreign affairs, in charge of the Francophonie.

Jacques Chirac (who said, upon hearing of Senghor's death: "Poetry has lost one of its masters, Senegal a statesman, Africa a visionary and France a friend")[50] and Lionel Jospin, respectively president of the French Republic and the prime minister, did not attend.

The analogy was made with the Senegalese Tirailleurs who, after having contributed to the liberation of France, had to wait more than forty years to receive an equal pension (in terms of buying power) to their French counterparts.

The scholar Érik Orsenna wrote in the newspaper Le Monde an editorial entitled "J'ai honte" (I am ashamed).

[51] Although a socialist, Senghor avoided the Marxist and anti-Western ideology that had become popular in post-colonial Africa, favouring the maintenance of close ties with France and the Western world.

Senghor's tenure as president was characterised by the development of African socialism, which was created as an indigenous alternative to Marxism, drawing heavily from the négritude philosophy.

Senegal's special relationship with France and economic legacy are more highly contested, but Senghor's impact on democracy remains nonetheless.

Senghor managed to retain his identity as both a poet and a politician even throughout his busy careers as both, living by his philosophy of achieving equilibrium between competing forces.

Members of the order at the rank of Knight and above enjoy personal nobility and have the privilege of adding a golden heraldic mantle to their coats of arms.

"[58] Michael Mbabuike, president of the New York African Studies Association (NYASA), said that the award also honours those who have worked "to make the world a better place for mankind.

In 1948, Senghor compiled and edited a volume of Francophone poetry called Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache for which Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an introduction, entitled "Orphée Noir" (Black Orpheus).

For his epitaph was a poem he had written, namely: With Aimé Césaire and Léon Damas, Senghor created the concept of Négritude, an important intellectual movement that sought to assert and valorise what they believed to be distinctive African characteristics, values, and aesthetics.

One of these African characteristics that Senghor theorised was asserted when he wrote "the Negro has reactions that are more lived, in the sense that they are more direct and concrete expressions of the sensation and of the stimulus, and so of the object itself with all its original qualities and power."

Négritude was by no means—as it has in many quarters been perceived—an anti-white racism, but rather emphasised the importance of dialogue and exchange among different cultures (e.g., European, African, Arab, etc.).

The time element points to the advancing or delaying of a schedule or agenda, while the space aspect designates the displacing and shifting of an object.