Analyze the poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes.

The rivers which Hughes describes follow the history of
human evolution,beginning with the Euphrates, where human civilization is believed to
have begun, to the African rivers of the Congo and Nile, and eventually to the
Mississippi, where Africans were brought as slaves to America. Hughes’ poem speaks to
the deep cultural history to which W. E. B. DuBois often alluded as an undiscovered
strength of African-American culture.

Rivers have specific
geographic boundaries, and yet by naming the rivers and their locales, the speaker
communicates the universal, boundless nature of the human soul. The title informs the
reader that the speaker is African American,though the racial identity is not overtly
mentioned in the poem itself. The effect of this approach is to suggest that the
connection of spirit and soul that this “I”shares with the earth is organic, even
prehistoric.

The incidents, including references to bathing
in line 5, building a hut on the Congo in line 6, pyramids in line 7, and singing of the
slaves in Mississippi in response toLincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, all evoke the
active role and contributions of African Americans throughout history. The chronology of
these stanzas reinforces not only the historical participation of the“Negro” but the
spiritual depth he has acquired in the long journey from slavery to
freedom.