BY C HUES
1/22/2021
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a poem by Langston Hughes which reveals themes of Pan-Africanism and Double Consciousness, and is influenced by the works, writings, and speeches of W.E.B. Dubois. The poem heavily uses biblical imagery and language to convey its message about the connection between African Americans to America and Africa. The four rivers mentioned in the poem show an epic journey of African Americans and how history has forever connected black Americans to their roots.
Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (published in 1926)[1] is dedicated to W.E.B. Dubois.[2] Why does Hughes dedicate this poem to Dubois? W.E.B Dubois was an African American “historian, educator, and activist…in later life became increasingly interested in Pan-Africanism.”[3] Pan-Africanism is defined as “the idea or advocacy of a political alliance or union of all the African nations.”[4] However, DuBois’ beliefs were initially in “a leadership of those referred to as the ‘Talented Tenth’, those who had received the benefit of Higher Education,” and Dubois further expressed that “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.”[5] However, his viewpoint was widely criticized for its elitism, and DuBois changed his views by 1915: “The Pan-African Movement when it comes will not, however, be merely a narrow racial propaganda. Already the more far-seeing Negroes sense the coming unities: a unity of the working classes everywhere, a unity of coloured races, a new unity of men.”[6] This unity suggests not merely “a political alliance or union of all the African nations”,[7] but more so a connection between African Americans and other people of African descent around the world. Pan-Africanism, as Dubois implies, is about the African diaspora and the connection that black people from everywhere share and use to strengthen themselves politically, socially, and economically. Pan-Africanism suggests a connection not only to sub-Saharan Africa, but to all of Africa. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, Hughes delves into Pan-Africanism. The speaker of the poem says, “I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.”[8] The Nile river appears often in the Old Testament in the Bible; it holds a special connection to African Americans because of its role in the Book of Exodus.[9] Many descendants of the African diaspora and Pan-Africanists have found solace and connection with the story of Exodus because of its slave narrative; Bob Marley, a Jamaican Pan-Africanist singer and songwriter, composed a song “Exodus”, which related the struggle of black people to escape from slavery with that of the biblical tale of the Israelites escaping from slavery in Egypt: “Exodus refers to a general [skill at] moving away from incoming disasters, governed by passovers; and preparing for each change in due season.”[10] Similarly, Hughes invokes the Nile to connect to the Exodus that African Americans undertook by overcoming slavery, leading to a change and a new season. This change (and connection between Africa and America for African Americans) is substantiated by the comparison of the Nile (a river in Africa)[11] to the Mississippi River (in America, which runs through New Orleans): “Abraham Lincoln’s decision to end slavery was partly inspired” by his visits to New Orleans in 1829 and 1831, a time in which “New Orleans was also a major center of the domestic slave trade.”[12][13] In the poem, the speaker says that he has seen the Mississippi River’s “muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.” This line corroborates the “change due season”[14] that an Exodus engenders. In Exodus 7: 17-18, Moses (through God) turns the Nile river from water into blood when confronting Pharaoh: “With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.”[15] This verse also correlates to the lines in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, which read “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.”[16] In Exodus 7:14-15, “the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile”.[17] The speaker of the poem connects the Nile and the Mississippi to himself as a “Negro” because both rivers are tied to the legacy of slavery; both rivers represent the “Double Consciousness” of being both African and American.[18] As W.E.B. DuBois notes, “One ever feels his twoness,-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”[19]
The speaker’s mention of the Euphrates River suggests the African American connection to the Earth’s beginnings; the Euphrates is not an African river or an American river but the speaker discusses it because of its biblical significance in the allegory or parable of Adam and Eve. The Euphrates River is mentioned in Genesis 2:13-15, when God speaks to Adam, “13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[a] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”[20] The speaker says, “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.”[21] “Dawn” can mean “The first appearance of daylight” or also generally refer to “the beginning or rise of anything; advent.” The lines about the Euphrates directly contrast with the lines, “I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down / to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden / in the sunset.”[22] The lines about the Euphrates start off the poem, and the lines about the Mississippi end the poem. This is significant because it signifies the journey of African Americans from the beginning of time to the end of slavery. Also, the lines about the Euphrates mentions “dawns”, but the lines about the Mississippi talk of “sunsets”. The word “sunset” is an antonym for dawn[23] and the speaker uses their antithetical meanings to convey the full journey of African Americans (at the time of the poem’s publication).
The speakers says, “I built my hut near the Congo”;[24] the Congo River is “a river in Central Africa”.[25] It is partially located in what is now The Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.[26] Most African Americans can trace some of their ancestry to the Congo; slaves were regularly stolen from the Congo and other nearby West and Central African regions.[27] Through the Congo to the Mississippi, the speaker establishes “genetic links between individuals in the Americas and populations across Atlantic Africa, yielding a more comprehensive understanding of the African roots of peoples of the Americas.”[28] The speaker replies that the Congo “lulled [him] to sleep”;[29] the word lull means “to put to sleep or rest by soothing means.”[30] The speaker denotes a time before slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, prior to the slave traders’ invasion of West Africa and the start of their evil, torturous methods. This line shows that the history of African Americans runs deeper than their time in America and recalls a time of solace and peace. The line about the Congo relates to the line mentioning the Euphrates because they both speak of beginnings; the Congo represents the origin of many ancestors of African Americans, and the Euphrates represents the origin story of Adam and Eve.
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a powerful poem that links African Americans to Africa and embraces W.E.B. DuBois’ vision of African unity and interconnectedness. Hughes uses the four rivers in the poem as symbols for connection and togetherness. Just as the rivers have a deep history that relates or is ingrained in African American history and culture, the speaker is part of a deep culture that connects him to events and time periods beyond his years. Ultimately, the poem signifies the historical strife and struggles of African Americans, along with the victories for justice that they have gained throughout time.
[1] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. P 913.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dictionary.com. Pan-Africanism. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pan-africanism?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[5] Pan-Africanism: A History. 2018. Hakim Adi. Chapter 3 p 1. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pan_Africanism/mQ5kDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bob+marley+pan+africanism&printsec=frontcover.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Dictionary.com. Pan-Africanism. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pan-africanism?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[8] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A16%2D18&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com Exodus 7:17-18. NIV.
[10] Vivien Goldman. The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century. 2007. Crown Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Book_of_Exodus/d2qJ2HfGv24C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=exodus. P 136.
[11]Dictionary.com. Nile. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nile?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[12] The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Eric Foner. 2011. P 10. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Fiery_Trial_Abraham_Lincoln_and_Amer/4b8m7cv3wTIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Abraham+Lincoln+New+Orleans+slavery&pg=PA10&printsec=frontcover
[13] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[14] Vivien Goldman. The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century. 2007. Crown Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Book_of_Exodus/d2qJ2HfGv24C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=exodus. P 136.
[15] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A16%2D18&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com Exodus 7:17-18. NIV.
[16] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[17] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A14%2D16&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com
Exodus 7:14-15. NIV.
[18] W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folks. 2020. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk/nv7oDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=double%20consciousness.
[19] Ibid.
[20] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202%3A13%2D15&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com. Genesis 2:13-15. NIV.
[21] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Dictionary.com. Dawn. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dawn?s=t.
[24] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[25] Dictionary.com. Congo. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/congo?s=t. Accessed January 22, 2021.
[26] Ibid.
[27] ARTICLE| VOLUME 107, ISSUE 2, P265-277, AUGUST 06, 2020. Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas. Steven J. Micheletti, Kasia Bryc, Samantha G. Ancona Esselmann, 23andMe Research Team,
Sandra Beleza, Joanna L. Mountain. Published:July 23, 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.06.012. https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(20)30200-7 .
[28] Ibid.
[29] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[30] Dictionary.com. Lull. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lull#. Accessed January 22, 2021.