On June 13, 1940, French Guianese poet Léon-Gontran Damas released Pigments, a fierce literary denunciation of colonial racism. A founder of the Négritude movement alongside Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, Damas used sharp verse to explore identity, language, and psychological trauma under French rule. The book, banned shortly after publication by the Vichy regime, became a revolutionary manifesto for Black consciousness across the Francophone world. Pigments was particularly influential among students and intellectuals in Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe, marking a pivotal moment in the literary resistance to colonial assimilation and racial oppression.
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