▶ Cheikh Anta Diop was born on December 29, 1923 in Thieytou in the town of Bambey which is located in the Diourbel region, 122 km from the Senegalese capital. His family is of Wolof aristocratic origin. A great Senegalese historian, scientist, Egyptologist, anthropologist and politician, he has devoted his life exclusively to the development of the African continent, in particular his research on ancient civilizations such as ancient Egypt and Nubia.
▶ He was only 22 years old when he obtained his second baccalaureate, one in mathematics and the other in philosophy, proof of a very rare intellectual curiosity. The man continued his graduate studies in 1946 at the Sorbonne to learn Higher Mathematics and philosophy, while continuing his research in Wolof and Serer.
▶ Between 1950 and 1953, he became secretary general of the students of the African Democratic Assembly (RDA) 11 and immediately indexed France in an article published in La Voix de l’Afrique noire, “the French Union which whatever the angle under which is considered to appear unfavorable to the interests of Africans ”.
▶ Continuing the struggle on a more cultural level, he participated in the various congresses of black artists and writers and, in 1960, he published what would become his political platform: “The economic and cultural foundations of a future federal state in Africa black”.
▶ In the sun of independence, the West African umbilical cord was still not cut, or at least not completely. His struggle has had a great impact on the African Independence, Black Consciousness and Pan-Africanism movements. Around 1960, Cheikh Anta Diop became the main aspirant of the democratization of the political component in Senegal.
▶ Like Omar Blondin Diop, he will lead a fierce opposition against the Francophile regime of Léopold Sédar Senghor, through a political party, named the FNS in 1961, the RND in 1976. His confrontation, in Senegal, with the cantor of negritude would be one of the most significant intellectual and political episodes in the contemporary history of black Africa.
▶ His works, including the essential Negro Nations and Culture, civilization or barbarism or even anteriority of Negro civilizations have enabled many Africans today to adopt a new behavior and to get rid of the stereotype that Westerners have always had for themselves. of the black man, an inferior man with low intelligence.
▶ Cheikh Anta Diop died on February 7, 1986 in Dakar in his residence in Fann, after a devastating heart attack. Today more than ever man remains for Africa a model that has inspired more than one, even despite his weak presence in school curricula.
Source: DSTV
