Decolonizing Diplomacy: Senghor, Kennedy, and the Practice of Ideological Resistance

Abstract

At the turn of the 1960s, Léopold Sédar Senghor and John F. Kennedy vowed to radically transform African foreign policy. Through a close reading of a recently declassified correspondence and a historical analysis of two behind-the-scenes negotiations, Senghor's first state visit to the U.S. and Kennedy's support for the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Ripert examines the private and public concatenations that lead both statesmen to transform policymaking not by implementing new policies but by challenging inherited ideologies. Though their efforts did not always bring successful change in policymaking, the diplomatic correspondence between the two newly elected leaders reveals a more subtle and sustainable transformation: a decolonization of diplomacy.