20 July 1925 - 6 December 1961

“I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.”

Early Life

Frantz Fanon was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, on July 20, 1925. He was the fifth of eight children in a middle-class household. His father, Félix Casimir Fanon, was a descendant of slaves who worked as a customs agent. His mother was Eléanore Médélice, a white Alsatian who opened a hardware store following the death of Fanon's father. Fanon's mother despised him because he, like his father, had a dark skin tone. Fanon attended one of Martinique's best high schools, Lycée Schoelcher, before it closed. The school was reopened, and Fanon studied under Aimé Césaire, who significantly influenced his identity. Fanon had previously favored a French worldview, but grew closer to his African roots under Césaire.

Military and World War II

In 1940, France fell to Nazi forces, forcing Vichy French naval forces to remain in Martinique. The sailors formed a collaborationist Vichy regime after seizing power. Fanon was appalled by the regime's authoritarian nature, describing them as behaving like "authentic racists." Fanon fled his home when he was seventeen and sought adventure in Dominica, another Caribbean island. In 1943, he traveled to France to join the Free French forces.

He served in Algeria, but he and other black soldiers faced prejudice not only from the military but also from French white women they liberated from Nazi forces, who preferred to dance with their captured than with the black soldiers. Fanon was awarded the Croix de Guerre (the French equivalent of the Purple Heart) for his courage.

France

Following the war's conclusion, Fanon returned to Martinique as a confident and proud black man. His stay in Martinique was brief, as he moved to France in 1946 to study psychiatry at the University of Lyon. Fanon wrote a thesis titled The Desalination of the Black Man, which was rejected; however, it served as the basis for one of his most famous works, Peau Noire, masques blancs (Black skin, white masks), which was published in 1952. In this book, Fanon used his degree to apply psychiatric theories to his own life experiences as well as the poor treatment of black people in France and their sense of inferiority.

Algeria

Fanon completed his studies and briefly returned to Martinique, but he no longer felt at home there, and after a period in Paris and applications to numerous institutions, he found work in 1953 at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in Algiers, Algeria. In 1954, Algeria's war for independence against France began, led by Fanon's Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). He attended to the psychological distress of French soldiers and officers at the hospital. Fanon resigned from the French army in 1956, only to be expelled to Tunis, Tunisia, shortly thereafter.

Fanon served as editor of the FLN's newspaper el Moujahid in Tunisia. Additionally, he trained FLN nurses and FLN members in how to resist torture and combat methods, utilizing his military experience. Fanon became politically active and well-known in Tunisia shortly after his arrival, and he spread his message throughout Africa, emphasizing the critical nature of achieving independence. In 1959, Fanon was appointed ambassador to Ghana by the provisional Algerian government, a position he used to assist the Algerian army.

Final Years

Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia, but he spent his final month writing Les Damnés de la Terre, for which he would be best remembered. In 1961, he traveled to the Soviet Union for treatment but was advised that the best care was available in the United States of America. His visit to the United States was arranged by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Frantz Fanon died on December 6, 1961, in Bethesda, Maryland. His skeleton was entombed in Algeria.

References

Frantz Fanon Quotes (Author of The Wretched of the Earth) (2021). Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/37728.Frantz_Fanon (Accessed: 13 May 2021).

Frantz Fanon and Decolonisation – Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh | Language, Resistance and Revival (2021). Available at: http://www.feargalmac.org/world/frantz- fanon-and-decolonisation/ (Accessed: 13 May 2021).

Frantz Fanon | Biography, Writings, & Facts (2021). Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frantz-Fanon (Accessed: 13 May 2021).

Frantz Fanon | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy(2021). Available at: https://iep.utm.edu/fanon/ (Accessed: 13 May 2021).

Frantz Fanon (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)(2021). Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/ (Accessed: 13 May 2021).

Micklin, A. (2008) Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) •, Blackpast.org. Available at: https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/fanon-frantz-1925-1961/ (Accessed: 13 May 2021).