
Blaise Diagne (13 October 1872 – 11 May 1934) was a Senegalese-French socialist politician who served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1914 to 1934. Diagne was the first West African to be elected to the Chamber of Deputies and the first to hold a position in the French government, and he supported equal rights for all, regardless of race, and encouraged the adoption of French social and cultural norms.
Biography[]
Blaise Diagne was born in Goree, French Senegal in 1872, and he was adopted by a mixed-race Christian family. He studied in France and joined the customs service in 1892, and he served in positions across Africa before becoming a Freemason in Reunion in 1899. Diagne was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1914 as a member of the SFIO, and, during World War I, he helped to recruit Senegalese soldiers for the French Army. In 1916, he persuaded the French government to grant citizenship to the inhabitants of the "Four Communes" of Dakar, Goree, Saint-Louis, and Rufisque. In 1919, he joined the Republican-Socialist Party, and he represented France in the International Labor Office and served as Mayor of Dakar from 1920 to 1934 and as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1931 to 1932. He died in office in 1934.