The Unsung Mothers of Négritude: An Examination of the Efforts of Women Behind the Movement

As a result of endemic racism and sexism, the contributions of people of color and women to historical movements remain largely underreported and overlooked despite extensive evidence of their involvement. This reality is particularly striking for women and non-binary individuals of color as individuals who exist at the intersection of these discriminations. In this paper, I examine three black woman scholars – Paulette Nardal, Jane Nardal, and Suzanne Césaire – whose contributions to the Négritude movement, and to the spread of the ideology of black consciousness throughout the African Diaspora, have been undermined by many scholars of Africana studies and overshadowed by the male scholars of their time