ABSTRACT
Contemporary Black Africa can be divided into wide regions which are clearly different from one another. . . . The unity of Black Africa is, nonetheless, not without foundations. . . . [T]he striking similarities of social organisation make a living unity of Black Africa. This physical reality, extensive and rich, did not wait for colonial conquest to borrow from, or give of itself to, the other wide regions of the Old World—the Mediterranean in particular, but also Europe and Asia. The image of an ancient, isolated and introverted Africa no longer belongs to this age: isolation— naturally associated with a so-called "primitive" character—only corresponded to an ideological necessity born out of colonial racism. But these exchanges did not break the unity of Africa; on the contrary, they helped to assert and enrich the African personality. The colonial conquest of almost the whole of this continent strengthened this feeling of unity in Black Africa. Seen from London, Paris, or Lisbon, Black Africa appeared to European observers as a homogenous entity, just as the North Americans regard Latin America as a continent which extends south of the Rio Grande.
