Blaise Diagne

Blaise Diagne (13 October 1872 – 11 May 1934) was a French political leader and mayor of Dakar. He was the first black African elected to the French Chamber of Deputies, and the first to hold a position in the French government.

Born from a Serer father, Niokhor Diagne and a Manjack mother originating in Guinea-Bissau, Gnagna Anthony Preira, Galaye Mbaye Diagne was born in Gorée, Senegal, he was later adopted by a Christian family who baptised him Blaise. He studied in France before joining the French customs service in 1892. He served in Dahomey (modern day Benin), French Congo (now Republic of the Congo), Réunion, Madagascar, and French Guiana. In September 1899, while in Réunion, Diagne became a freemason, joining a lodge affiliated with the Grand Orient de France.

Diagne was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of France in 1914 as Senegal's representative. He was reelected several times, serving until his death in 1934. From 1914 to 1917 he caucused with the Marxist-socialist Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, forerunner of the French Socialist Party, before affiliating with the Independents led by Georges Mandel. In 1914 after recently becoming the newly elected deputy of Senegal, Blaise Diagne was critical in the government intervention in an outbreak of plague which struck Dakar. In 1916 Diagne convinced the French parliament to approve a law (Loi "Blaise Diagne") granting full citizenship to all residents of the so-called Four Communes in Senegal: Dakar, Gorée, Saint-Louis, and Rufisque. This measure constituted a considerable element of the French colonial policy of a "civilizing mission" (mission civilisatrice). He was a leading recruiter for the French army during World War I, when thousands of black West Africans fought on the Western Front for France.

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