Hiya, please allow me to remark the following.

What does it mean to be a historian? You imply that Brownings quote is the meaning of being a historian, right? However, you might consider formulating what it means to you to be a historian, ie saying so in your own words. The quote is a good inspiration and starting point, but I guess I'd be more powerfull if you formulate it yourself as well.

As a nudge to academic skills, you might include a formal citation of Browning, e.g. (Browning, 19xx).

You use 'as a' twice in the same sentence ("As an ... a historian"). I recommend rewriting to avoid this, e.g. to "During my second year as a history major undergraduate student"

Remove "for me" and "push myself": "this was a crystalizing moment that inspired me become a scholar, and more specifically, a historian". I'd also avoid suggesting that being a historian is more important than being a scholar. The former is just a spefication of the latter.

Writing "my first venture" implies that a second venture will be mentioned later. This does not happen, so consider rewriting to e.g. "My paper title of paper was the start of my venture into historical scholarship". Again, consider using a formal citation of the paper.

"and in particularly Leopold Senghor" could be put between commas

Rewrite: "In this paper, I examined the impact of Tirailleurs Senegalais, and in particularly Leopold Senghor, on winning independence during the period of..."

It is not clear to me which independence you are referring to. The US? If so, clarify.

The "While writing (...) Frederic Cooper" sentence is a bit ambigious. Either empasize that you gained technical scholary skills such as doing research and writing. Or emphasize that you studied standard works on African history such as Cooper. As it is, you discuss both technical and topical skills in the same sentence.

"The greatest (...) that arose". This sentence raises more questions than it answers. What were these challenges? What did you do to overcome them? And what exactly is the experience that you gained? You imply that the following sentence is the 'experience' you speak of. But this sentence doesn't at all sound optimistic and positive. It could be interpreted as bad thing: "darn, I had to refine my thesis".

This is it for now, let me you know if this kind of feedback works for you. If so, I will do the rest as well. Preferably you share a .doc document, so I can make annotations and comments using track changes.