French language African Litterature was born at the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to a cascade of factors that witness the regain of interest of Occident for the black wolrd: the discovery of nigger art by Cubists, the triumph of afro-american rythms, jazz in Europe, the accounts of European ethnologues, Maurice Delafosse, Leo Frobenius... about Africa's people way of life.
Writers soon take the their turn with, in 1920, the publication of the first "The Nigger Anthology" by Blaise Cendrars, while Ghillaume Apollinaire, in "Zone" evoquates his "Oceanian and Guinean Fetishes".
The rehabilitation of African Cultures will be necessary for black people to start writing themselves again.
"Nigger Litterature" (as it was called at the at his creation) in European languages expresses the fantesised vision of the world by black people: it is about life, events, aspirations, raw feelings.... But this awakening didnt happen in a day. Black writers who started to write at the beginning of the 20's were following the tradition of affirmation and rehabilitation of black civilisations that started in the 19th century, and as eary as the "lumieres" in the french 18th century in certain cases.

From Harlem to the "Quartier Latin"
It's Black America who affirms the imminent recovery of the Black dignity. "I am a nigger" writes William Dubois in 1890, "and take glory in this name; I am proud of the black blood that flows in my body". Black writers such as Langston Hughes, Claude Mak Kay, Countee Cullen, Sterling Brown... see themselves in these words.
They create in 1918 a movement called "Negro-Renaissance" or "Intergration", in an America that macerates in prejudice they talk about the preservation of black personnality at all cost.
W.E.B. Du Bois, philosopher and man of action, is the autor of the best seller "The Soul of Black People". In his masterpiece devoted to the cause of black people in ameica, he demonstrates the necessity to eradicate in the mind of white, and of black people, the image of a sub-human nigger. He also was the creator of the national association of colored people which print threw the basis of a black politic action that was able to change people and government's opinion. True father of "negritude" according to Lilyan Kesteloot, W.e.B. Du Bois influenced Leopold Senghor and his companions through Marcus Garvey and the Negro-Renaissance movement.
W.E.B. Du Bois was also at the source of the great panafican congresses from Paris (1910) to Manchester (1945), that will militate in favor of the recognition of the people's right to dispose of themselves, an idea that will go its way after the second world war.
We'll notice the upcoming of a movement similar to the one of Haiti, following the "Indegineous Review" created on 1927 by Haitian writers: Emile Roumer, Philippe Thoby-Marcellin, Carl Brouard, Jacques Roumain...
The "Indigenists" were advocating rehabilitation of racial, cultural and moral values inherited from Africa.
The Haitian occupation by American troops in 1915 and the dominaion of french litterature models have long disturbed the cultural renaissance. Rendering the results of his research on local traditions in his manuscript "Ainsi Parla L'oncle" (1928), the Haithian anthropologue Jean Price-Mars was proposing a new source of inspiration to litterature. The Haitian Writer was discovering the sublime of an authentic civilisation based upon the double inheritance, African and Carribean.
After United States and Haiti, the reflexion on the basis of black civilisation continued mainly in France. Between 1925 and 1935, most of the black cultural activity revendication happens in Paris, movements that take their roots and their leaders from America: Langston Hughes, Claude Mac Kay, Carl Brouard, Oswald Durant..., but mainly it's the ones from antilles and Africa that will take the initiative of building communication within the African diaspora.

Paris Capital of Black Rights, 1925 - 1935
Promoted capital the world for Litterature, Paris becomes the center stage of a new culture, a culture opened to outside infuences: "an open city, says Leon-Gontran Damas, where we were meeting all sorts of people, mainly black americans from all classes, at a moment when Europe was discovering the "nigger art" and the "negro spirituals".
Black people you meet in this between-two-wars-Paris dont do abstract theories anymore. Men of action, they are directly involved as parlementaries, journalists, unionists, students... in a fight for the emancipation of the black race. They take inspiration in the idea of panafricanism, dear to William Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, and employ their time for the fight against cultural assimilation. To make their ideas heard and defend their interests they create some associations such as: "Comitee for the Ceference of the Nigro Race", "Union of Nigro Workers", "League for the Defence of Nigro Race"...
These associations have their own publication: "Les Continents" (Continents - 1924), "La voie des Negres" (Nigro Voice - 1927), "La Depeche Africaine" (African Times - 1928) "La Race Negre" (Nigro Race - 1927), "Le Cri des Negres" (Negro's Shout - 1931)...
One can't be mistaken on the intentions of these publications when they reveal the work of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, or when they give free to militants for the black cause: Senegal's Lawmaker Blaise Diagne, Antille's writer Rene Maran, the unionist Garan T. Kouyate...
Meanwhile one can regret that these men, focused on the emergency of political problems in France and in the colonies, dont attach more attention to cultural issues.
From 1930 the importance of this aspect of emancipation is starting to be evident and regular publications appear that will work in promoting African arts and values: "La depeche Africaine", "La Revue du Monde Noir" (Magazine of the Black World), "Legitime Defence" (Self Defence), "L'etudiant Noir" (The Black Student).
La Depeche Africaine, created by Gouadeloupe's Maurice Satineau in 1928 is very radical and conservative, but also makes much support for Nigro Litterature. One of the first black writer to benefit from it's stands is the Togolese novelist Felix Couchoro.
The paper is supported by Rene Maran, Carl Brouard, the Sisters Nardal, Pierre Baye-Salzmann... They have all their crave for a Black Litterature
The same goes for the paper "La Revue du Monde Noir" (Black World Review), created by Haiti's Leo Sajous in 1931. The editorial comittee is mainly from the "Depeche Africaine" (P.Baye Sapzmann, Paulette Nardal...) so it was considered the prolongation of Maurice Satineau's "La Revue du Monde Noir". It is more ambitious because it gives a body to the Black Litterature.
By inventorying the common traits between the different black cultures, La Revue du Monde Noir gives the grounds to these 2 figures of Black People emancipation that are Leopold Sedar Senghor and Cesaire. Nevertheless it's not considered a revolutionary review. It is accused of not clearly condemning assimilation and of not being completely Negro.
Legitime Defence created by Etienne Lero in 1932 will exclude all and any compromise with latin cultures. The signees of the manifest of "Legitime Defense" are young radical Antillese that claim their rejection of traditional models of litterature - Parisian esthetic or post-romantism - . They reject burgher class values as well for it is the cause of the degradation of moral and intellectual values of the colored Antilles. In another hand, the embrace Marxist doctrines openly , as well as surrealism and psychanalyse. From these methods they want to force the opening to a new vision of the world, starting with the re-descovery of their core identity, obscured by centuries of slavery. They think that the writer "freed from his alienations" can create authentic and pieces expressing "African love of life, african joy of love, African dream of death" (Etienne Lerot).