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Monday, April 21, 2008
In news from Martinique, the death of poet, cultural icon, and International Black Pride Activist Aime Cesaire has resonated worldwide, for those who revered the man who, along with the Senegalese writer Leopold Senghor, coined the term Negritude, a celebration of Black Pride. Flags flew at half staff this week in the French Overseas Department where Aime Cesair died after being admitted to hospital for heart problems. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy led thousands of mourners at the state funeral Cesaire whom he described as an "indefatiguable defender of human dignity and respect for human rights." Sarkozy's decision to honour Cesaire with a state funeral was only the fourth time that a literary figure has been accorded such a distinction after Victor Hugo in 1885, Paul Valery in 1945 and Colette in 1954.
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