The Negritude movement, which signaled the awakening of a pan-African consciousness among black French intellecutals, has been understood almost exclusively in terms of the contributions of its male founders: Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Léon G. Damas. This masculine genealogy has completely overshadowed the central role played by French-speaking black women in its creation and evolution. In Negritude Women, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting offers a long-overdue corrective, revealing the contributions made by the women who were not merely integral to the success of the movement but often in its vanguard. In exploring their influence on the development of themes central to Negritude - black humanism, the affirmation of black peoples and their cultures, and the rehabilitation of Africa - Sharpley-Whiting provides the movement's first genuinely inclusive history. -- from back cover.