négritude, a literary movement on the part of French-speaking African and Caribbean writers who lived in Paris during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Adherents of négritude included Leopold Sédar Senghor, Léon Damas, and Aimé Césaire, who is said to have coined the term. Characteristic of négritude are a denunciation of Europe's devastation of Africa, a decrying of the coldness and stiffness of Western culture and its lack of the humane qualities found in African cultures, and an assertion of the glories and truths of African history, beliefs, and traditions.