Today marks the birth of Léon-Gontran Damas (1912-1978).
Leon-Gontran Damas was born on March 28, 1912, in Cayenne, French Guiana. He excelled in school early and was sent to a French government school, the Lycée Schoelcher, on the island of Martinique to complete his primary education. There he met Aimé Césaire in a philosophy class, and the two became lifelong friends. He later continued his studies at the University of Paris. He served in the French army during World War II as part of the Resistance. He founded, with Léopold Senghor and Césaire (who coined the term négritude) the journal L’etudiant noir, whose purpose was to promote Black cultural awareness. Damas served as Guyanese deputy to the French National Assembly, worked for UNESCO as representative for the Société Africaine de Culture, and was overseas editor at Radio France. Damas was also a member of the editorial board of the journal Presence Africaine. In 1970, Damas moved with his Brazilian-born wife, Marietta, to Washington, DC, where he taught briefly at Georgetown University and Federal City College. During the last years of his life he worked at Howard University, where he was acting director of the African Studies Program and Distinguished Professor of African Literature until his death in 1978.
Damas is well known for his poetry and essays. Some of his books include the poetry collections Pigments (1937, 1962), Poèmes nègres sur des airs Africains (1948), Graffiti (1952), Black-Label (1956), and Névralgies (1966).
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