Not Just the Culture, but the
Challenge
Langston
Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a poem which tells of the immigration
of Africans to America, and goes on to show the process they have been through—and
are still going through even today—to become an integral part of American
society. The poem is not, however, a
straight accounting of atrocities done to blacks up to and including slavery in
America. Nor is it a plea. Instead, the poem challenges all Americans,
no matter their race, to accept that African Americans are important in their
own right, and that they will not go away.
Chloe
Bolan, in her overview of the poem says that, “these people, these Negroes,
have come out of Africa, and later out of slavery, and they have flourished in
the fertile crescent of their spirituality and contributed much to world
civilization” (Bolan). On the other end
of the spectrum, Sarah Hardy says that, although the “poem speaks of the past,
Hughes's vision is focused on the future, when the devastation of slavery can
begin to seem small in relationship to a long and proud historical tradition. ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’can be understood
as a utopian vision, one that is located in an ideal and mythic ‘no place’
(Hardy).
While it is
true that the mention of “my soul” in the poem does invoke a spiritual element
(Hughes), there is also a more worldly aspect to the poem. This component is also very much in the
present, not referencing a future date, nor a utopian ideal. There is a sense of pride in “The Negro
Speaks of Rivers,” as though the speaker is shouting to the world about African
Americans: “We matter! We helped shape
this world, we are as much a part of it as you are, and deserve to be treated
equally!” Nowhere in the poem does
Hughes suggest that one day this will be true, but rather the poem intimates that
it is true now.
The events
described in the poem are history, and therefore have happened; Hughes just
wants the rest of the world to open its eyes and see the African Americans
around them as the people they are. He
wants all Americans—black or white—to see that African Americans should not
have to do what white Americans do in order to gain prestige and to be seen as
valuable. What they have done throughout
the ages is already priceless. Leon
Lewis expands on this statement:
“The poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is a
corollary [to his poem ‘I Too’] in which Hughes suggests the richness of the
historical legacy that African-Americans have brought to American society.
Blending the history and heritage of black people who "bathed in the
Euphrates when dawns were young," who "looked upon the Nile and raised
the pyramids above it," with their lives in America where they "heard
the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln / went down to New
Orleans," Hughes opens a passage of centuries previously ignored by school
texts. The concluding line, "My soul has grown deep like the rivers,"
is an attempt to project the elusive but powerful spirit of black culture that
has enriched American lives into an image that can touch all Americans”
(Lewis).
This
historical legacy of which Lewis speaks is something that should give blacks a
sense of pride, and should invoke respect—or at the very least, remembrance—in
whites. Furthermore, “whites and blacks
are the target audience. [Hughes] wants to remind both black and white readers
of the rich and regal history of African Americans, and . . . that they, like
each of the major rivers referred to in the poem will persist and endure”
(Rader).
There is no
way to miss the fact that Hughes’s focus is on purely African American
concerns. But he is not preaching these
concerns just to the whites who have treated blacks so badly over the
millennia. He preaches them to all
people, black or white, in America, and “at no point in the poem does he
mention Boston or England or Plymouth Rock. Instead, he positions the poem
amidst an overtly African and African-American landscape, in particular, the
rivers of Africa and the Deep South. Hughes uses the metaphor of the river, of
a river's origin, to comment on his own origin and the origin of black
experiences across the globe” (Rader). This
is an invocation of a sort of “shared cultural memory,” meaning that “just
because these individuals or even these societies no longer exist, does not
mean that they are dead” (Rader). Nor
does it mean that African Americans should give in to despair and leave their
dreams behind. Instead, African
Americans should be proud of their heritage, of their culture, which, “like the
Mississippi, . . . will continue moving, progressing, growing” (Rader).
“The Negro
Speaks of Rivers” is not just an accounting of one culture’s spiritual
heritage. It is not about one race’s
effort to blame another for all of its hardship over time, nor is it an
idealistic view of a possible future for African Americans. It is much more than any of those ideas. What the poem is most, however, is a
challenge. “We are here,” it says, “we
will be recognized. We have been since
the beginning of time, have done good and important works, and we will be far
into the future; know and accept us for who we are.”
Works Cited
Bolan, Chloe. "Overview of 'The
Negro Speaks of Rivers'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc.
Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr.
2012.
Hardy, Sarah Madsen. "Overview
of 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Michael L.
LaBlanc. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web.
16 Apr. 2012.
Hughes, Langston. "The Negro
Speaks of Rivers." Anthology of American Literature. By George L.
McMichael, J. S. Leonard, and Shelley Fisher. Fishkin. Tenth ed. Vol. II.
Boston: Longman, 2011. 1622. Print.
Lewis, Leon. "Langston Hughes:
Overview." Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers. Ed. Laura Standley
Berger. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Twentieth-Century Writers Series.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.
Rader,
Dean. "Overview of 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'." Poetry for
Students. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.Teacher Comments and Grade: What you have is really good Darcy, but at 2½ pages it is too brief to qualify for a 6-8 page research paper. Other than the brevity, though, you have done a fine job! B
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