Evolution Revolution: A Journey from African Colonial Subject to French Citizen

Lorelle Semley explores the life of Marc Kojo Tovalou Houénou of Dahomey, who burst onto the Parisian social scene in the 1920s in a series of soirées and political scandals. His notoriety featured a number of contradictory affiliations, seemingly radical and conservative at the same time: association with Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African movement while claiming loyalty to France, boasts about his French citizenship while seeking an indigenous title in colonial Dahomey. The limited scholarship on him portrays him as a Pan-Africanist, assimilationist, or precursor to Négritude. Tracing Houénou's travel as a subject-turned-citizen in Dahomey, Togo, and Senegal as well as his long time residence in France and his brief travel in the United States, this paper suggests that his travel in French West Africa, in particular, radicalized his politics. His writings and activism also expose fundamental hypocrisies in the policies and rhetoric of French empire, making him a pivotal figure for African, Atlantic, and imperial historiographies.