Photo : A.BourgeoisP / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Maison de la Négritude
The Maison de la Négritude et des Droits de l'Homme is a municipal museum at Champagney, in the Haute-Saône, about twenty kilometres from Belfort. Founded by the local historian René Simonin with the support of Léopold Sédar Senghor, then President of Senegal, it opened in 1971.
Its starting point is article 29 of the 1789 list of grievances, in which the people of Champagney asked the king to abolish the slavery of Black people, an exceptional demand in this type of document.
The renovated museum traces the history of slavery, from the slave trade to its modern forms, with a reproduction of a slave ship and items illustrating African and Haitian cultures. It is part of the Route of the Abolitions of Slavery, a network of five sites in eastern France, and welcomes school groups and visitors interested in memory and human rights.
