Louis-Thomas Achille (1909-1994) was a Martiniquais intellectual, educator and musician. He was an important participant in the
Negritude movement, collaborating with his cousins
Jane
Jane may refer to:
* Jane (given name), a feminine given name
* Jane (surname), related to the given name
Film and television
* ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd
* ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fil ...
and
Paulette Nardal in founding the journal ''
La Revue du Monde Noir ''La Revue Du Monde Noir'' was a periodical created and edited by Paulette and Jane Nardal in 1931, France. The publication ran for a course of six months and contained a wide variety of content including essays, short stories, and poems.Sharpley- ...
''. After
World War II he settled in
Lyons
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of th ...
, teaching at the
Lycée du Parc. There he founded an English choir, the Parc Glee Glub, which specialised in
Negro spirituals.
Life
Achille was born on August 31, 1909, in
Fort-de-France
Fort-de-France (, , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Fodfwans) is a Communes of France, commune and the capital city of Martinique, an overseas department and region of France located in the Caribbean. It is also one of the major cities in the ...
, the son of Louis Achille, an associate professor at the university.
[
In the late 1920s Achille joined the Sunday 'circle of friends' of his cousins, the Nardal sisters, at their house in Clamart. He later recalled the "dominant feminine mood" of these afternoon gatherings, centred around English tea, as well as their informally performative atmosphere:
In the 1930s Achille taught French language and literature at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and at the ]University of Atlanta
The University of Atlanta was a Private university, private, For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit, distance education university headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It opened in Mobile, Alabama as Barrington University u ...
. From 1943 to 1945 he fought for the Free French Forces.
Achille attended the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists
The Congress of Black Writers and Artists ( French: ''Congrès des écrivains et artistes noirs''; originally called the Congress of Negro Writers and Artists) was a meeting of leading black intellectuals for the purpose of addressing the issues of ...
in Paris in 1956. He raised the question there whether Africans called themselves Black, "an expression that, indeed, has been imposed from outside, by the colonizing nations".[. Quoted in ]
He died on May 11, 1994.[
In April 2022 his collection of documents and music was donated to the Part-Dieu municipal library of Lyons.]
Works
* 'L'Art et le noir', ''Revue de Monde Noir'', No. 2 (December 1932), pp. 28–31
* 'L'artiste noir et son peuple', ''Présence africaine'', New Series, 16 (Oct-Nov 1957), pp. 32–52
* 'In Memoriam: Paulette Nardal', ''Présence africaine'' 133–134 (1985)
References
External links
louisthomasachille.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Achille, Louis Thomas
1909 births
1994 deaths
Martiniquais musicians
Martiniquais writers
People from the French West Indies