Poet, politician was a proponent of ‘black pride’

Aime Cesaire, an anti-colonialist poet and politician who was honored throughout the French-speaking world and was an early proponent of black pride, has died. He was 94.

Cesaire died Thursday at a hospital in Fort-de-France, Martinique, where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, said government spokeswoman Marie Michele Darsieres.

He was one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated cultural figures and was revered in his native Martinique. The French island repeatedly elected him mayor of its capital and sent him to parliament in Paris for nearly half a century .

Cesaire helped found the “Black Student” journal in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of “negritude,” urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 “Discourse on Colonialism” became a classic of French political literature.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed “very great sadness” at Cesaire’s passing, and said “the entire French nation” is in mourning.

“Through his universal appeal for respect of human dignity, awareness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples,” the president said a statement. Sarkozy’s office said he would attend Cesaire’s funeral today in Fort-de-France.

Cesaire’s best-known works included the essay “Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain” and the poem “Notes From a Return to the Native Land.”

His works also resonated in Africa. Former President Abdou Diouf of Senegal said Cesaire had led a noble fight against hate.

“I salute the memory of a man who dedicated his life to multiple wars waged on all battlefields for the political and cultural destiny of his racial brothers,” Diouf said.

Born June 25, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Cesaire attended high school and university in France. He returned to Martinique during World War II and served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except in 1983-84.

Cesaire helped Martinique shed its colonial status in 1946 to become an overseas department.

As the years passed, he remained firm in his views.

In 2005, the politician-poet refused to meet with Sarkozy, then the interior minister, because of Sarkozy’s endorsement of a bill citing the “positive role” of colonialism.

“I remain faithful to my beliefs and remain inflexibly anti-colonialist,” Cesaire said at the time. The offending language was struck from the bill.

Despite the snub, Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique’s airport in honor of Cesaire. The poet eventually met with Sarkozy in March 2006 but endorsed his Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, in the 2007 French elections.

Cesaire was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958.

He later allied with the Socialist Party in France’s National Assembly, where he served from 1946-1956 and 1958-1993.