Negritude

American  

[neg-ri-tood, -tyood, nee-gri-] / ˈnɛg rɪˌtud, -ˌtyud, ˈni grɪ- /

noun

Older Use: Often Offensive.

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

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negritude British  

/ ˈnɛɡ-, ˈniːɡrɪˌtjuːd /

noun

1. the fact of being a Negro

2. awareness and cultivation of the Negro heritage, values, and culture

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Sensitive Note

See Black ¹.

Etymology

Origin of Negritude

First recorded in 1945–50; from French négritude; Negro , -i- , -tude

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