1956 Congress
Train ticket to Paris,
Léopold Sédar Senghor
"The Cold War may be dead, but new blocs have replaced the old - most notably, the religious, often inseparable from the cultural. For those who are constantly placed on the peripheries of these alien blocs, occasions of historic significance should be seized to take stock, examine how far we have journeyed on the road to self-retrieval."
- Wole Soyinka, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, 2006 Congress Speaker
1956 International Congress of Black Writers and Artists
The 1956 1st Congr¸s International des Ecrivains et Artistes Noirs was a watershed gathering of writers and artists who came together for the first time to discuss the international influence, legacy, and future of black cultural and artistic production, and, indeed, the black presence in the world. A diverse array of international luminaries converged and delegates included Africans, Carribeans, African Americans, Anglophones, Francophones, and Pan-Africanists, among others.
The first Congress opened on September 19, 1956 at the Sorbonne in Paris with an address by Alioune Diop, the editor of Prˇsence Africaine and one of the principal organizers of this historic event. Delegates purposefully chose to hold the event in the SorbonneÕs Amphithˇ‰tre Descartes, named after one of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment. Amidst a backdrop of the post World War II era, the emergence of the Cold War, and the nascent US Civil Rights Movement, delegates discussed a rich texture of issues including colonialism, the emancipation of non-European peoples, race and racism, capitalism and communism, as well as history, literature, and poetry. The original 1956 Congress was also a celebration of fraternity and human solidarity.
