Lamine Senghor: from servant of empire to anti-colonial radical

On the evening of 11 February 1927, the tall, gaunt figure of Lamine Senghor strode to the podium at the inaugural meeting of the League against Imperialism (LAI). The LAI was one of the interwar communist movement’s most significant attempts to forge an anti-colonial front of nationalists, communists and socialists, uniting white Europeans and colonial subjects from around the globe. Yet, like other such initiatives, it proved short-lived. In his rousing speech at the LAI meeting in Brussels, Senghor denounced imperialism as a modern form of slavery and called on the workers of the world to unite and overthrow the entire capitalist-imperialist system. His call for a world of “no more slaves” applied equally to the exploited of the colonies and the working class of the industrial nations.