The Nardal Sisters and the Négritude Movement

Rooted in generational achievement, the ‘Nardal Sisters’ became the nucleus that drew the finest minds of the pan-African world into their orbit. Emily Musil Church writes that their father, Paul Nardal, ‘was the first black man to earn an academic fellowship for the national École des Arts et Métiers after the abolition of slavery in 1848,’ and ‘the first black engineer in the Department of Public Works in Martinique.’ Their mother, Louise Achille, Church continues, ‘was a schoolteacher and prominent musician’ who co-founded the Société Saint-Louis-des-Dames, ‘one of the first women’s groups in Martinique.’ Collectively, Paul and Louise Nardal ‘opened their home to frequent visits from the local intellectuals and musicians, a tradition that would be carried on by their daughters.’ These meetings that took place in Paulette and her sisters’ apartments, or salons, are a culmination of the intellectual and activist legacy initiated by their parents. The Nardal sisters reinvigorated this legacy with a pan-African lens that was informed by the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, which would go on to inspire the Négritude movement of the 1930s catalyzed by the sisters.