1956: Paris’ Big Gathering of Writers
In September 1956, writers, artists and thinkers from Africa, the Caribbean, the United States and other parts of the world gathered for the first time at the Sorbonne, a famous university in Paris. Their mission: to talk about their history, cultures and future.
Imagine a large room at the Sorbonne, filled with writers, artists and thinkers. For four days, from September 19 to 22, 1956, they discussed what Black people were experiencing in different parts of the world.
At the time, several African countries were not yet free to decide their own future: other countries controlled them. This is called colonialism: when one country controls another country and makes decisions for it.
The idea for this major gathering came from Alioune Diop, a Senegalese man born in Saint-Louis. In 1947, he created Présence africaine, a magazine that published texts and ideas about Africa and African people.
Among the participants were famous figures. Aimé Césaire was a writer and poet from Martinique. Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese poet who would later become the first president of Senegal. Richard Wright was a famous American writer.
But they did not all agree! The participants sometimes had very intense debates about history, racism and colonialism.
One year earlier, in 1955, the famous Bandung Conference had taken place in Indonesia. Representatives from 29 countries in Africa and Asia had gathered there to discuss, among other things, the end of colonialism. Bandung became an important moment in the history of independence movements.
In Paris, some newspapers therefore gave the congress a curious nickname: the “Bandung of Black culture”.
After the gathering, the participants created the African Society of Culture, an organization created to continue their work.
