Blaise Diagne
First Black African deputy (1872 – 1934)
Family : Place of birth : Gorée ; Date of birth : 13 October 1872 ; Mother : Gnagna Anthony Preira (Manjak) ; Father : Niokhor Diagne (Lebou, cook and sailor)
Education : Educated by the Brothers of Ploërmel, then at Aix-en-Provence and the Duval school in Saint-Louis, from which he graduated top of his class in 1890. He passed the customs exam in 1891; from 1892 to 1910 he held colonial posts (Dahomey, Congo, Réunion, Madagascar, Guiana).
Action : Elected in 1914, he became the first Black African deputy in the French Chamber of Deputies. He got the law of 29 September 1916 passed, recognising French citizenship for natives of the Four Communes without requiring them to give up their personal status. From January 1918 to October 1921 he was commissioner general for the recruitment of African troops (called “indigenous troops” at the time): he mobilised about 63,000 soldiers from French West Africa for the First World War.
Trials : The first African deputy, he faced hostile campaigns.
Legacy : Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from January 1931 to February 1932, he was the first African to hold this office. He died on 11 May 1934 at Cambo-les-Bains. An avenue and a lycée in Dakar bear his name, as does the international airport (2017).
Sources
- Cambridge — Ascendancy of Blaise Diagne
- Persée — Marc Michel, « La genèse du recrutement de 1918 en Afrique noire française » (Outre-Mers, 1971)
- Persée — G. W. Johnson, The Emergence of Black Politics in Senegal (compte rendu, 1973)
- Cairn — « Le retour de Blaise Diagne » (Humanisme, 2014)
- Cairn — « Le recrutement dans l’empire colonial français, 1914-1918 »
- Wikipédia — Blaise Diagne